


Spooky Scary Peterick Moments

by Hum My Name (My_Kind_of_Crazy)



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Coffee, Cooking, Fantasy, Fluff, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Monsters, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pumpkin Spice, halloween themed, one shots, so much fluff oh my god
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-09 16:33:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 36,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12280302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/My_Kind_of_Crazy/pseuds/Hum%20My%20Name
Summary: It's not spooky or scary. Whatsoever.31 short moments of Pete and Patrick in October.





	1. Halloween Cookies

**Author's Note:**

> I KNOW I HAVE OTHER FICS TO WORK ON OKAY
> 
> Ok but seriously, I wanted to do something for October/Halloween since it's one of the best holidays and months imo and I wasn't about to actually start a huge new fic so these are just little one-shots with some sort of fall/October/Halloween theme around them.
> 
> It was supposed to be one a day but then I got overloaded by tests and essays so instead of doing Plan B (write and post five of them tonight to be caught up) we're jumping to Plan C (Post at least once a day but expect more than one on a few days because I need to get 31 by the end of the month)
> 
> Also, this is fluff. A lot of fluff. And if you've read literally any of my others works, you know that's not my thing. So. This should be interesting....
> 
>  
> 
> Enjoy!!

Pete treats Halloween the same way most people treat Christmas. One would think that, after so many years of knowing him, Patrick would have realized this by now.

Knowing that he should have expected it, though, does not get in the way of his shocked gasp when he opens the door to Pete’s home on October first.

The first thing he notices is the purple lighting. By itself, Patrick wouldn’t be too shocked. Pete did invite him over to work on some more MANIA music; he wouldn’t put it past the bassist to try and set some sort of “aura” in the house to get more inspiration flowing.

The orange fairy lights and fake cobwebs wrapping around every available surface, however, do have Patrick stumbling back a few steps. He blinks, not quite trusting that he won’t be stuck in a parallel dimension if he lets the front door close behind him. As he takes cautious steps into the house, glaring at the fake spiders on the floor with distrust, more evidence of a Halloween explosion makes itself known. The paper bats hanging from the ceiling. The miniature pumpkins lining the stairs. The devil horns on Bowie’s head when he runs up to meet him.

The deafening sound of “Spooky Scary Skeletons” blasting from the kitchen.

Patrick lets out a breath and trudges towards the creator of this mess.

“Congratulations, you’re probably the only person on earth to go this all out for Halloween,” Patrick comments upon arriving in the kitchen. He glances around, grateful that this room, at least, still has normal light bulbs. Even if it has been attacked by the Halloween decorations, as well. He glances towards the TV set up across the kitchen in the living room, frowning and knitting his brows together when he sees  _ Young Frankenstein  _ playing on TV. Muted. His frown deepens. “Dude, the best part of that movie is the dialogue. Why the hell would you mute it?”

Summoned by the question, Pete pops up from behind the kitchen island, tossing some grocery bags on top with a smile. “So I could hear the oven and microwave when their timers go off.”

“But the music…” Patrick trails off as Pete starts taking baking supplies out from the bag, considering the conversation a lost cause. He takes his jacket off and tosses it over a chair instead, sitting down and watching Pete with narrowed eyes. “Dude, I thought we were gonna work on the album.”

Pete pulls out a package of Oreos with a small hum. “Was that today?”

Patrick tries not to let his flabbergasted expression linger on his face for too long. “Why….Why else do you think I would be here?”

“I don’t know,” Pete says, pulling out yet another package of Oreos— pumpkin-spiced seasonal-flavored this time. “Did you want to help kick off Halloween?”

“Halloween’s at the end of the month, you doofus,” Patrick says, his tone more fond than insulting. 

“Ok, go online, Trick. All of the kids are calling it Halloween first instead of October first.” Pete doesn’t even look up as he talks, too busy setting out melting chocolate and markers with— supposedly— edible ink. Patrick didn’t even know they made those. “Also, Halloween is way more deserving of more than just one day. If Christmas can start on, like, the first day of November, then Halloween can start on the first day of October.”

Patrick rolls his eyes even as he stands and makes his way towards Pete. “First, you’re not a kid. Second, Christmas doesn’t start on November first. Stores and companies exploiting it for profit just like to pretend it does.”

“Meh, whatever,” Pete says, looking up to smile at Patrick. “You haven’t left, yet. That mean you’re gonna help?”

“I guess,” Patrick sighs, acting much more put-upon than he feels. Glancing at the supplies before him, Patrick leans down on the counter and grins. “So, what are we doing?”

“Making cookies!” The answer would be much more believable if Pete wasn’t gesturing to the dozens— oh my goodness, literally dozens, who buys that many? — packages of pumpkin-spice oreos.

“Um,” Patrick says, standing up straight again and staring at the premade cookies. “Ok, so, I don’t know what your plan is but I’m pretty sure that you’re doing it wrong.”

“No, hey, look,” Pete says, scrambling to snatch his phone from the speaker he’d had it plugged into. Patrick sighs in relief as the tones of some dubstep remix of that skeleton song shut off. “I found this awesome recipe for oreo pops. They’re supposed to look like pumpkins when they’re done! Tell me that’s not cool.”

“I guess it’s pretty cool,” Patrick says, taking Pete’s phone and scrolling through the example pictures. “Cute, at the very least.”

“Yep!” Pete says, his smile growing as he moves to stand behind Patrick. “And they’re, like, super easy. I’ve already made a ton of them, I just need to draw on the faces and stuff.”

“There’s no way you’ve already made a ton,” Patrick says. “The recipe says to leave them out overnight so that they— oh my god.”

Patrick turns just in time to see Pete dramatically lift a lid off of some cookie trays, sweeping his other hand through the air as if introducing the cookies to the world. “I made some last night.”

“Of course you were making Halloween cookies yesterday. You know yesterday was September, right?” Patrick only asks because it seems as if Pete really might not have known that. Patrick shudders, memories of Halloweens that lasted well throughout the entire Fall season playing through his mind. 

“Duh. But I wanted to make a tester batch before committing to it,” Pete says. “Anyway, what do you think?”

Patrick sighs and gives in, looking down at Pete’s pumpkin cookies and preparing to compliment his attempts.

Instead, his entire being freezes as shock works its way through his body.

“Patrick?”

No response.

“Patrick?”

Still no response. Patrick struggles to find something to say. He’s not quite certain that there  _ is  _ something to say in such a situation.

“Patri—”

Finally, Patrick’s mouth spits out the words spinning through his head. “They’re blank.”

“Well, yeah, I didn’t have time to draw on the faces and decorations before you came over. I already said that,” Pete responds, his proud smile falling into an offended frown.

“No. I mean.” Patrick splutters for a moment, still trying to process how on earth Pete doesn’t understand what he’s saying. “They’re blank.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Of course, he doesn’t.

Patrick opens his mouth, prepared to describe, in perfect detail, just what he means. “They’re just….blank.”

Ok. So. Maybe not the best explanation but Patrick refuses to feel at fault for his bafflement.

“No, they’re pumpkin cookies,” Pete says, folding his arms across his chest and appearing like a pouty child. “Or, at least, they will be pumpkin cookies once I—”

“Pete, do you know what pumpkins are?” There. That should get the message across.

Instead of an outraged defense that he does, in fact, know what pumpkins are— as Patrick expected— Pete just huffs out a breath and storms to Patrick’s side, taking his phone back as if prepared to show off just how well he followed the recipe.

Patrick can tell the exact moment Pete realizes what Patrick means by “blank”.

“Oh fucking shit,” Pete curses slowly, hand tightening around his phone. “I forgot to add the orange food coloring.”

It’s at that moment that Patrick gives in and starts laughing uncontrollably. 

“I can’t believe you didn't notice, oh my god! You’ve...You’ve had these for  _ hours  _ and didn’t even think twice about what color they were! Oh my god, oh my god, Pete, oh my god.” Patrick’s breathless giggles interrupt his words until he’s bending over, hands on his knees as his sides begin to ache. “I can’t fucking breathe, Pete. You just made some white Oreos. White pumpkin Oreos.”

“Shut up!” Pete defends, his attempt to make Patrick stop laughing futile. The embarrassment in his voice just makes Patrick laugh harder. “Shut up, okay? I was too excited to notice. Forgive me for getting into the Halloween spirit.”

“Not enough into it, obviously,” Patrick says, his eyes actually watering. He stops, takes a breath, looks at the cookies again, and then bursts into another bout of hysteric laughter. “Oh my god, this is amazing.”

The cookie trays-- that Pete had revealed so proudly-- display row after row of chocolate dipped Oreo cookies. Smooth and flawless, it’d be making Patrick’s mouth water in any other situation. More than once, he's admitted that Pete is quite good at cooking and crafts on some days.

Today is not one of those days because, as wonderful as they are, the pumpkin Oreos are covered in nothing more than white chocolate, the lack of orange food coloring as obvious as a slap in the face. They appear more as flattened marshmallows than anything pumpkin related and Patrick can't get enough of it.

“Wait, wait, white pumpkins are a thing, right? Were you going for that?” Patrick asks, standing up and willing himself to get some control over his giggles. “Is that another thing that kids do online these days?”

“No,” Pete says, his voice darker and more upset than Patrick expected it to be. “They’re supposed to be orange, what kind of idiot would  _ try  _ to make them white? Goddamnit, I can’t believe I fucked this up so badly.”

Pete presses his hands over his face, leaning back against the counter with a frustrated groan. Patrick swallows down another tease and pats Pete’s arm in what he hopes is a reassuring manner.

“Come on, it was just a tester batch, right? No one expects those to be perfect. At least you know what to pay attention to in the next attempt,” Patrick suggests. Pete just groans again, louder this time.

“This is such a waste of cookies,” he says, dropping his hands from his face and staring at the white Oreos, his eyes forlorn. Patrick raises an eyebrow at the dimmed excitement in his voice; he frowns at the way Pete’s shoulders have sagged.

“It’s fine,” he says. “Come on, they're just cookies. Why’s it bothering you so much?”

Pete shrugs, turning away with a disappointed scowl. “It’s stupid but I was just…I was kind of looking forward to just hanging out with you. We haven’t been able to do any of those dumb Halloween things we used to do so I thought, ya know, maybe it’d be fun to just take a break from working and appreciate the fact that it’s the best month of the year.”

Any other day, Patrick might have disputed Pete’s claim about it being the best month but, right now, he’s too busy getting swept into simple memories of living in a crowded apartment, curled up on a couch with cheesy horror movies playing on TV. Pete would be sitting next to him, sharing a tub of store-bought cookie dough as they competed to see who could create the worst Halloween puns. They’d lose track of time, the two of them, until Patrick’s stomach was aching from the raw dough and Pete was promising that he’d cook him actual cookies someday.

Patrick sighs. It’s a nostalgia thing. Of course.

“And now I ruined it by forgetting something as stupid as orange food dye,” Pete says bitterly, yanking Patrick away from his own sentimental thoughts. He sighs, turning away. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you come over to see this failure.”

“It’s not a failure,” Patrick says. “And nothing’s ruined. You’ve gotta stop being so hard on yourself.”

Before Pete can protest, Patrick turns to the supplies still spread out on the other counter, searching around until he finds what he’s looking for: the marker with edible ink. He glances at Pete, eyes lingering on the tattoos on the bassist’s arms, and then turns to the cookies with a new determination.

He presses the tip of the marker onto one of the smoother cookies, wanting his creation to look as good as possible. The marker writes better onto the chocolate than Patrick had expected, making the task that much easier. His lips purse as he focuses on the black ink, drawing out details to make the picture as clear as possible. It’s not something he’s ever had to draw before but, if it will get Pete to feel even a little bit better, than it’s worth attempting.

“There,” he says once he's done, pulling back and grinning down at the cookie. “What do you think?”

Pete looks down at the oreo, his lips twitching into an almost smile. “Did you draw Jack Skellington’s face onto a cookie?”

“Yep,” Patrick says, looking down at his— rather accurate— depiction of the Pumpkin King. “It’s not a pumpkin like you wanted but….Look, I’m the last person who should be saying this, but not everything has to be perfect or exactly the way you imagined. It’s like our album, yeah? Sometimes things don’t turn out just right the first time you try it but that doesn’t mean you quit and start beating yourself up over it. You start again or, at least, I mean, look at it from a different angle. And whatever you  _ do  _ end up doing doesn’t have to be perfect. I mean, obviously.” 

Patrick laughs at his drawing of Jack Skellington, expecting Pete to join in and tease the uneven smile. Instead, silence joins Patrick’s laughter and he looks over to see Pete’s eyes focused intently on him.

Seconds pass. Seconds where Pete’s gaze makes Patrick fidget because there’s something in his look that they both know better than to name. 

“What?” Patrick asks, granting Pete a shaky smile. “Too deep?”

Pete's smile is soft, carrying messages Patrick tries to ignore. “No, I just…If anything's close to perfect, Patrick, it's you.” 

Patrick’s breath catches in his throat from the honesty he hears in Pete’s voice. The raw emotion, the genuine way his eyes light up…Patrick forces himself to look away before he does something stupid. 

“Come on,” he says, all too aware of how hard he must be blushing. “Let’s make some cookies. I’m curious to see how you think you’ll be able to get done in one day.”

Pete laughs, letting go of the intense atmosphere that had been building between them. “I’m curious to see how you think I  _ won’t _ .”

Patrick shakes his head as Pete hurries to put on some “spooky music” once more. It’s too bad Pete hadn’t said he was curious about what Patrick was thinking in that given moment.

Because Patrick thinks that Pete’s pretty perfect, too. 

 


	2. Pumpkin Spice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete Wentz + a pumpkin spice prompt....What else could it have led to?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbeta'd! Hope you enjoy!

Pete knows that he should be headed to work, okay? He knows that he’s already fifteen minutes late and that Gabe’s gonna kick his ass if he doesn’t clock in before noon. He’s gotten the lecture of “employee punctuality” three times this month and he wouldn’t put it past Gabe to make him sit through it again.

It’s not even like he’s late on purpose. His insomnia was a bitch last night and he hadn’t fallen asleep until the sky was already halfway blue. He doesn’t even remember much of falling asleep, if he thinks about it. Just sitting at his writing desk one second and then waking up with the worst crick in his neck the next. His alarm clock had been blaring from his room, alerting him to the fact that he needed to be awake ten minutes ago. 

He’d rushed like hell this morning to get dressed and ready— even forgoing a shower and matching socks. He’d probably be at work right now. Still a bit late but not late enough to make Gabe glare at him the entire shift.

But then he saw a Starbucks.

No. Scratch that. 

He saw a Starbucks sign proudly displaying that it was that time of year. The time of the Pumpkin Spice Lattes.

Pete’s only human, after all, and that’s how he found himself standing in the longest Starbucks line he’d ever encountered, pointedly ignoring all calls and texts from his boss. Besides, having the chance to get a Pumpkin Spice Latte and not doing so would be going against his entire personality.

His phone buzzes again in his pocket and he winces.

Maybe he’ll order one for Gabe, too. Just to be safe.

He takes a step forward as the line, finally, moves up for the first time since Pete arrived. He tries not to be too frustrated with it but, come on, he has work.

“Oh my god, okay, I’m not getting in that line,” someone says upon entering, followed by their immediate exit. Pete grins. He doesn’t quite blame them.

The line is longer than an average Starbucks line, just a few people short of reaching the door. To make matters worse, it’s taking twice as long for the person running the cash register to handle each customer. Pete peeks around the shoulder of the guy in front of him to check on how the kid is doing. 

“Okay, that’ll be, um, it’s, the total is 9.25. No, wait, 35! Sorry, it’s 9.35.” Pete smiles as the boy up front— a kid with red-blonde hair and the most adorable blush— fumbles with the money the customer’s passing him. It’s pretty obvious why this particular visit is taking so long but it’s hard to be too frustrated when the cause is so cute. 

But then Pete catches sight of the time as he makes the mistake of checking his phone. 

“Oh, crap,” he mutters, anxiety piling in his limbs as he wonders just how he’s going to make it up to everyone for being so late this time. Maybe he’d be better off just getting the latte on his lunch break. He moves to step out of line, ignoring the fact that he’s only two people back from his turn, when he hears the shouts.

“How the fuck do you even have a job if you can’t handle such basic tasks?” An older businessman shouts, his face red and hand displaying an iced mocha. “Do you really think I ordered something  _ cold  _ in  _ October _ ? Do I look like that kind of moron to you?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the boy up front says, visibly shaking as he reaches to check the receipt. “It’s possible I misheard or pressed the wrong button on the computer. It’s my first day, I haven’t really gotten used to everything yet.”

“Don’t make up excuses!” The man roars, causing even Pete to flinch. “You’re lucky I don’t have a word with your manager!”

“I’m really sorry,” the boy says again. “I’ll get it fixed, I promise.”

“You think I trust  _ you  _ to fix anything?” The man leans over the counter and, for a horrid second, Pete wonders if he’ll actually attack anyone. “Isn’t there anyone competent back there?”

“I-I…” The boy’s breath begins to come a bit too quick— a sign of panic that Pete knows all too well— and that’s when Pete decides that enough is enough.

“Lay the fuck off him, asshole,” Pete says loudly, walking up to the front of the line. “He already said sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t get me a new drink,” the man snaps, holding out his mocha as if it’s proof that he’s right. Okay, Pete admits that it would be strange for someone to order iced anything in this weather but, really, this is a bit much.

“No but some fucking manners probably would,” Pete snaps, shoving the man’s hand away from him. “Now, are you gonna keep being a dick and hold up the line for the rest of us or can you do everyone here a favor and just fucking leave?”

The man’s already red face gains a more purplish shade as he stammers for some insult he can throw at the punk teen that’s telling him off. He sets his cup down harshly, spilling coffee everywhere, and Pete raises an eyebrow, prepared for a fight.

Instead, the man just hisses a “fuck you” and rushes out the door, shoulder-checking Pete on his way out. 

“Finally,” Pete breathes. “I thought he’d never go.”

“Me too. Thanks, by the way. I thought he was gonna hit me or something.”

Pete looks up, suddenly remembering the boy he’d been defending. Up close, he can read the nametag:  _ Patrick _ . 

“So, um.” Patrick looks up with wide eyes, made even bigger by the glasses framing them. “What can I get for you?”

It takes a second for Pete to realize that Patrick’s asking about some sort of drink.  _ Not  _ a weird repayment for scaring away the dick that had been insulting him.

“Oh, I was actually just leaving,” Pete says, mentally kicking himself the instant the words leave his mouth. He spent most his time here admiring this guy and now he’s running away? Idiot, idiot,  _ idiot _

“Oh,” Patrick says, his shoulders sagging even as his smile— bright as the sun, Pete swears it— remains on his face. “Then, have a nice day.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Pete says, turning to leave. Not even a second passes before he’s turned back around and facing Patrick. “Actually, can I have a pumpkin spice latte?”

Patrick blinks, taken aback by Pete’s sudden request, but laughs once his shock fades. 

“PSL?” He says teasingly as he rings up the order. “Classy.”

“Hey,” Pete defends, smiling as the atmosphere eases. “Don’t diss my love of quality Starbucks drinks.”

“I work here. I don’t think I could get away with that,” Patrick says. Pete’s smile widens as Patrick’s anxiety starts to fade away before his eyes. “Size?”

“Oh, um, the big one.” 

Pete knows that Patrick’s going to laugh a second before he does. 

“Okay,” Patrick says, giggling through his words a bit. “You love Starbucks but you don’t know the official size terms. Dare I say, fake fan?”

“Whatever,” Pete laughs, pulling out his wallet and handing over his card. “Dare I say, coffee snob?”

“Dude, I work at Starbucks,” Patrick says. Pete just smiles. “Name?”

“Pete.” He waits for a beat as Patrick writes down his name, surveying the boy and taking in just how gorgeous he is. Yeah, he’s definitely worth the embarrassment sure to come with the next line: “But you can call me anytime.”

“What!?” Patrick’s hand slips, causing the end of the  _ e  _ he was writing to gain a very sharp tail. Pete winces and waits for rejection; Patrick seems to do the same, looking up at Pete with something akin to distrust. “Are you joking?”

“Um,” Pete glances around, glad to see that the line from before— that he’d skipped in front of, whoops— had disappeared after the shouting match earlier. “If you want me to be joking, sure. Sorry, I can be really forward but you seemed nice and all so, um, worth a shot, right?”

Patrick blinks. Once. Twice. Three times, just to be safe. “I don’t have your number.”

“Oh, I—” Pete digs out his phone, pretending that Patrick’s words were a yes. His excitement, however, is cut off when the screen instantly lights up with the notification that Gabe’s calling him again. He resists the urge to groan. “Actually, I should probably take this. Just a second.”

Patrick nods and Pete answers the phone.

As expected, Gabe has nothing calm to say, shouting about how this has happened far too often and how Pete’s lucky he hasn’t been fired yet. Pete barely gets a word in, complaining about his sucky sleep habits and offering to buy Gabe some coffee. 

Gabe hangs up the second a barista shouts ‘pumpkin spice latte for Pete!”, muttering about stupid Starbucks fixations.

It was a brutal call— admittedly, Pete deserved it— but it was quick and Pete grabs his latte and turns back to face Patrick with a grin only to find him serving another customer.

Damnit.

He doesn’t have time to wait around, not if he wants to keep his job. Patrick eyes him apologetically but Pete just shrugs and mouths that he has to go.

“Wait,” Patrick says, cutting off his customer in a way that he probably shouldn’t. “You forgot your receipt.”

Pete’s eyebrows furrow together. “I didn’t want my receipt.”

The exasperated look that Patrick puts on is comical enough that Pete mentally laments the fact he won’t be able to appreciate it for much longer. “Just take it.”

“If you insist but—” Pete takes the paper and looks down, suddenly understanding when he sees the numbers scrawled across it. “Oh.”

“Don’t worry,” Patrick says, face bright red as he handles the customer’s money. “You’re under no obligation.”

“Dude, I—”

“Patrick! Finish up that order and take a break!” A manager shouts from somewhere in the back. Patrick shouts back that he heard and then turns to smile at Pete.

“I’m guessing you don’t have time to hang around?” He asks. Pete smiles sadly.

“Duty calls,” he says, waving his phone in the air like a total doofus. Still, Patrick laughs.

“Well, you have my number. Call it. You know. If you want to.”

Pete just smiles. “See you around, Patrick.”

“Yeah, see you.”

The second Pete’s out the door, he starts fumbling around with his phone, balancing his latte in the crook of his arm and trying his best not to drop it. It takes a while but, eventually, he presses his phone to his ear and smiles at the ringing sound.

“Hello?” Patrick’s voice is polite, wary, warm.

Pete grins. “You know, it’d go against my very personality not to call someone as cute as you.”

Patrick laughs and, even as the October wind brushes against his cheeks, Pete’s able to forget all about the cold.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there! It's sort of late right now so I don't have anything witty to say. Leave a comment if you enjoy the one-shots! I'd love to hear from you!


	3. Monsters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there's a poorly explained curse followed by a lot of emotion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plan D: Totally ignore the fact that I forgot to upload this yesterday, yikes.
> 
> Anyway, if I had the time and motivation, I would totally expand this into a full AU. Like, I spent a good while just excitedly imagining every detail that could go into this plot and how it would impact the band and little cute moments that would go into their lives and relationship and, basically, I already have a document filled with headcanons (or, I guess, canons since it's my own au?) of this pairing.
> 
> Also, this has a bit of a fantasy twist that I used to dabble quite a bit in but haven't touched in years. So. Fluff + fantasy. Let's see how that goes. (though, there's a bit of hurt/comfort. Come on, we all knew I couldn't avoid that for long)
> 
> Enjoy!!

**** September 30th: a day that marks six months since Pete met Patrick— the golden boy with the golden voice, a shining star stuck in the spiraling darkness and confusion of the high school jock party they both were dragged to by unreliable friends. 

September 30th: a day that marks five months since Pete asked Patrick out, practically begging on his knees at his doorstep late one night, incapable of staying away from the younger boy much longer; Patrick had shushed Pete through his giggles, telling him to not to wake his parents as they kissed for the first time against his front door, accidentally ringing the doorbell but still hesitating to pull apart like the love-stricken boys they were— and still are.

September 30th: a day that marks three weeks since Pete realized that the love he feels for Patrick isn’t the mere infatuation he often accused it of being; it isn’t something fleeting or frozen in a state of rose-colored glasses and youthful lying emotions. It isn’t something Pete’s willing to let go of; if anything, it’s something he needs to scream to the world.

September 30th: a day that marks nearly two decades of days just like it. A day that Pete should pay closer attention to. A day that he shouldn’t be stupid enough to let his guard down on.

But it’s hard to pay attention to the alarms in the back of his mind when Patrick’s tongue is dancing against Pete’s lips. It’s hard to remember why he should be afraid when Patrick’s hands are gripping so tightly to Pete’s shirt. It’s hard to think of anything at all when Patrick opens his big blue eyes, blown with want, only to shut them and surge forward to connect their lips once more.

Pete leans further into Patrick’s hold, afraid to be even an inch away from the boy. The rough fabric of the old couch in his family’s living room— his parents and siblings out for the night, locked away just like he should be— scrapes harshly against his arm but he doesn’t have the time to care. He holds Patrick in place with a firm grip on his shoulder— gentle because they both know there’s nowhere else either of them would rather be. They break apart to take a breath, Patrick’s breath like laughter, before Pete allows himself to capture Patrick’s lips with his own once more. Patrick quivers beneath his touch, lips parting to allow Pete’s tongue to dip into his mouth teasingly. 

Somewhere in the house, a timer goes off. It’s subtle, the sound of wind blowing through crystal chimes. Pete recognizes it as the same one his father reminds him of each year, mouth stern and hands twitching into fists. But Pete can’t place why his gut screams that it’s important to listen to. He can’t remember why he should think of it at all when he has Patrick in his arms. 

It doesn’t make sense to pull away; it doesn’t make sense to break apart. Pete does everything his senses tell him not to. He presses closer and steals away all of Patrick’s breaths. He shifts until he’s practically straddling the other boy, chests pressed so close together it’s near impossible to tell where either of them begins or ends. 

The timer grows louder, demanding attention. Pete only deepens the kiss between him and Patrick, wrapping his fingers up in Patrick’s soft hair and refusing to let him go. 

The timer chimes one last time. If Pete had any chance to escape the coming storm, it’s long gone now. 

It starts with the stopping of Pete’s heart. 

There’s no gradual fading of the beats, nor are there any warning signs other than the timer and the clock that he refused to pay attention to. His pulse is there one second; it’s abandoned him the next.

Patrick doesn’t seem to notice, his fingers scrambling to hold onto Pete’s arms, digging into the skin like the older boy may disappear at any given notice. Pete ignores the empty feeling in his chest, the way that his frantic excitement is only reduced only to his mind because his body can’t give off any more signals.

_ Focus on Patrick _ , he tells himself.  _ Don’t think about the way your blood has suddenly stopped flowing. Don’t think about how you can hear his pulse.  _

Even as he presses closer to Patrick, a less sensible piece of his mind searching for friction, he feels the temperature drop, his skin chilling. He opens his eyes to see if Patrick’s noticed anything wrong yet but shuts them just as fast as the world explodes into needless lights and details before him, his heightened senses alerting him to the beads of sweat on Patrick’s brow and the scent of his lust surrounding them.

Patrick whines, deep in his throat, and Pete does his best not to respond with a growl. His fingers tighten in Patrick’s hair and he imagines he feels each individual strand, can sense every inch that Patrick moves. It’s terrifying; it’s exhilarating.

He keeps his eyes shut, working on keeping them brown-- on keeping them  _ normal _ . He’s had a lifetime to practice that part, at least. He knows how to hide the most obvious signs of this change.

But then he feels his teeth growing, sharpening, pressing against his lips in an attempt to make themselves known. To show off what he is.

Patrick pulls back a second before Pete has a chance to.

There’s a second, a horrible second, where Pete’s eyes open and he sees Patrick with these cursed eyes. He sees every detail of the beautiful boy, from the yellow ring around his pupil to the golden shade hiding in even the darkest coloring of his hair. But he also sees the way that Patrick’s eyes widen in unspeakable fear. He sees the puncture wound in Patrick’s bottom lip and the steady line of blood dripping from it.

“Patrick, I—” Pete doesn’t know what he plans to say. It doesn’t exactly matter.

“I have to go,” Patrick says suddenly, shoving Pete away and causing the older boy to end up sprawled across the floor. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but….I should go. I need to go.”

He’s terrified; Pete needs only listen to the tremors in his voice to know that. Patrick gives no explanation for his abrupt departure as he rushes to his feet and towards the door, yanking his hat down to hide his face and stumbling over his own feet from how much his body’s shaking. He opens the door, the October wind— the damned October air itself— invading Pete’s home and warning them of a storm approaching. Pete stands, staring at Patrick’s back and hoping for him to turn around.

“Wait, Patrick, please, just…” He trails off, watching the other boy stiffen. “It’s gonna rain. Stay until the storm passes or, at least, let me drive you back.”

He expects at least a harsh “no” or a cruel laugh. But he receives neither, nothing but a jerky shake of the young boy’s head followed by his disappearance into the sprinkling of rain outside.

The sound of the door slamming shut behind him is just like that of Pete’s heart snapping in two— whether or not it’s beating.

He allows himself one moment— just one— to pray that this time won’t turn out like all the others who’ve discovered. He takes one second— barely one— to wait for Patrick to come back.

_ Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry _

He’s not quite surprised when he doesn’t.

“Damnit!” Pete screams, collapsing to the ground once more with hot tears brimming in his eyes. He should have paid attention to that clock, should have paid attention to the fucking date. But, no, because he’s so obstinate and cocky, he just had to push the limits and test the results. He just had to follow the part of his mind that whispered hopes that Patrick might not find it all that horrible that Pete’s a vampire— that Pete’s a _ monster _ .

“Part monster,” he breathes out, wrapping his arms around himself and shutting his eyes. He has to reassure himself that this will be over in thirty-one days. He has to remind himself that it’s not even his own fault.

It was his grandfather’s fault, long before Pete was born. It was his grandfather that broke a witch’s heart all those years ago, not Pete. It was his grandfather that promised to marry a girl that loved him-- only to leave her at the altar upon realizing she was one of the strange girls that liked to practice magic. His grandfather had denounced her as a monster before their friends and families, declaring that no one could love such a thing. His grandfather had caused that girl to cast a curse upon the Wentz family, one that would affect every generation of sons for one month of each year. It was his grandfather that caused a witch to claim that every October the Wentz family must be filled with monsters.

It was his grandfather’s fault, all of it. The only thing Pete did wrong was assume Patrick would understand. 

Pete forces himself to his feet, trying his best to shove all thoughts of fearful eyes and bleeding lips out of his mind. Should he really have expected anything other than that reaction? He should consider himself lucky that terror was the only response he received, memories of hateful and angry rejections still stinging like a crucifix against his skin.

Across the room, a window taunts Pete, the glass reflecting everything but him. He doesn’t recall deciding to cross the room in the time it takes to blink, doesn’t remember his pain becoming anger as he runs his knuckles across the place where his reflection should be. Does it matter that he can’t see himself? He’s seen his brother, father, cousins, and uncles enough times to know what he looks like. Cliched. Disgusting. Monstrous.

He pulls his fist back slowly, aiming for the piece of glass right before his face. His muscles tense in his arm, inhuman strength preparing to shatter the window like it’s nothing more than a flimsy sheet of paper. He knows he can do it, knows the pain in his hand will be imaginary, knows he’ll get away with it because he’s not the only one in the family who feels such injustice at this curse.

His bares his teeth— his  _ fangs _ — and lets a snarl travel from the back of his throat straight to the front. His fist flies forward….and then a sudden noise makes it stop.

Whimpers. Sniffling. Soft muffled sobs.

Pete’s heightened hearing focuses on the sound. 

Someone is outside. Someone is crying. 

Pete heads for the front door, curiosity or bravery taking him there— he’s not sure which one. But he is sure it’s past midnight and the rain has become a perilous storm. The cold and the dangers of what lurk in the dark won’t affect him— not when he is such a danger— but it could be affecting someone else. If this curse lets him help someone else, why shouldn’t he go along with it?

He follows the sound down the street, his heart aching for whatever soul can make such lost and lonely sounds. 

He passes by four houses, each home silent but for the breaths of the sleeping families inside, before reaching the source of the sobs.

Someone’s curled up by a bush at the edge of a yard. They’re small, shaking and covering their mouth with their hands as if to quiet their cries. Pete steps closer, grateful for the dark’s ability to hide what he is.

Being what he is right now, though, means that he can see things that others wouldn’t. In the pitch-black dark of night, he can see each strand of red-blond hair; he can see the flawless porcelain skin underneath the streaming tears and pouring rain.

But seeing doesn’t mean he quite believes it.

“Patrick?” Pete asks, kneeling down next to the younger boy. “Patrick, what are you—”

“Pete?” The fear from before returns. Patrick’s eyes widen and his arms work frantically to shove himself away. He shakes his head, not once looking away from Pete’s face. “Pete, I’m so sorry, I should have told you, I know I should have told you. Please don’t hate me, oh god, please, please, I’m so sorry…”

Patrick’s apologies and pleas ramble on as Pete draws closer, Patrick’s voice filling with desperation Pete can’t understand. What could Patrick possibly be apologizing for? Running away? Being afraid? It hurt but Pete can’t blame him, especially if Patrick’s feeling this bad. 

But the fear in Patrick’s eyes….The terrible way he shakes…..There’s something much stronger at work here, something worse than guilt.

“Patrick….I don’t understand.” 

Patrick takes a breath that sounds more like he’s drowning than anything else. His hands run over his face, hiding behind them.

“I’m sorry. Just…Just don’t hate me,” he begs.

He takes off his hat and reveals his face; he stretches his legs out in front of him. 

Wait. 

No.

Not his legs.

His  _ tail _ .

Pete pulls back in shock, eyes widening as he takes in the sight of him. A slick sky-blue tail takes the place of where Patrick’s legs should be, twitching with each gust of wind and ending with a fish-like fin. Pete’s eyes follow the shimmering scales as they travel beneath Patrick’s shirt, appearing again with a darker shade along his neck and the sides of his face. They frame his eyes— pupils enlargened past the point of resembling anything human. When he runs his hands through his hair— nervous, terrified— Pete’s eyes catch on the webbing between each finger.

Everything and nothing makes sense in that moment of realization.

“Oh my god, Patrick, are you—” he’s not sure if there’s any particular way to approach the subject, any required subtlety or gentleness, but he’s never done anything the right way, anyway. “Is your family cursed, too?”

Patrick shakes his head, wet locks of hair falling over his face and adding to the image of what he is— what he’s become between midnight and now. “No, no, I….We don’t know why it happens. It just does, ever since I was seven. Every October, for the entire month, I…I’m stuck like this. I don’t know why but I promise that it’s not, like, what I really am!”

“You’re a…Every October you turn into, what, a merman?” Pete asks. Patrick’s lower lip trembles but he still seems stern through his shaking voice.

“Yeah, I guess? In really basic terms. I never wanted to look too much into it.” He pauses to take a breath, staring at the grass beneath him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to tell you. I…I understand if you don’t want to be with me anymore, I know this is weird but I can’t control it.”

Pete’s whirring mind— calculating years and memories that match up with them— slam to a halt. “Wait, what? Patrick, are you even looking at me?”

Patrick looks up, eyes squinting in the dark. The expanded pupils suggest he can see clearly but, just to drive the point home, Pete hisses. His lips lift to show off his fangs and he feels his eyes flash red, his vision switching to see everything as variations of heat— something meant to help him hunt, he supposes. He’s concerned to see that Patrick’s colder than he should be.

Patrick’s eyes widen; his hand flies to his lip, pressing against the scabbed over puncture Pete had created not too long ago. “I thought I saw some changes earlier but….I was too worried about you noticing  _ me _ . Have…Have you always been a vampire?”

“Have you always been the little mermaid?” Pete asks with what he hopes is a comforting smile. He’s greeted by the soft sound of Patrick’s laughter blending in with the relentless wind surrounding them, easing the tension that had been forming. He lets himself relax, placing a cautious hand on Patrick’s shoulder as he explains. “It’s a long story but, basically, my grandfather got the family cursed. Every October, all men related to him get turned into some sort of monster. I guess I got it easy with a vampire. My cousin goes full centaur each year, you can imagine how upsetting that is.” 

Patrick gives Pete a small smile, wiping his tears away with the back of his hand, before the grin drops and his eyebrows furrow together. “But….But that doesn’t explain  _ me _ .”

“Well.” Pete looks down, glad he can’t blush or feel his heartbeat speed up. “When I was really young, eight or nine or something, my dad became obsessed with ending the curse. He tracked down the witch’s location, took me with him to demand that she take it back. I guess he thought having a kid with him would soften her heart, I don’t know. Instead, she offered to grant any wish I might have— anything aside from taking back the curse, of course. My biggest fear at that time was that no one would like me because of it so I…I asked her to make sure that the person I was meant to be with— the person I would eventually fall in love with— would understand about the curse. I’m guessing, well, um. That probably explains it?”

Patrick’s silent for a long moment. Long enough for Pete to worry.

When Patrick reaches out suddenly to smack Pete’s arm and look up with his cheeks burning red, Pete’s worry only grows. 

“You absolute dick!” Patrick cries out. “This is all your fault!”

“It’s not like I thought she’d grant the wish like this!” Pete defends, hands gesturing through the air frantically. “I just…I meant that I wanted someone with an open mind or, like, really understanding heart! If I’d known she’d turn you half-fucking-fish, I never would have wished it, I swear!”

Patrick starts laughing and Pete pauses mid-exclamation, realizing that Patrick’s not as upset as he’d been pretending to be.

“Calm down! I’m okay with it. Well, not the fish part but…I get why you’d wish for that,” he says, smiling brightly. He laughs a bit more before stopping suddenly, looking up with a searching gaze. “Wait. The person you’d fall in love with?”

If Pete could blush, he would. As it is, he barely convinces himself to keep his eyes on Patrick.

“I, uh, I guess,” he says, his hands fidgeting with the grass, tearing some out as he speaks. “I mean. Yeah. Yes. Is that…Is that okay?”

The corner of Patrick’s lips twiches; his eyes fill with barely contained excitement. “Say it.”

“What?”

“Please. I…I want to hear you say it.”

Preparing the words is like filling a balloon within his chest. His breaths grow heavy; if his heart was beating, he’s sure it would be racing.

What is there to be afraid of? 

Pete reaches and brushes Patrick’s hair from his face, smiling when the pads of his fingers catch along those fantastic scales.

“I love you, Patr—”

The rest of his words disappear behind Patrick's lips, the younger boy crashing against him like the rain against their skin.

Patrick’s hands fist in the collar of his shirt and tug him down, desperation and desire in every movement. He doesn’t start slow, doesn’t ease Pete into the fact that they’re pressed so closely together. It’s rushed and urgent but not like it’s the last one— it’s like it’s the first.

They pull apart, just long enough for Patrick to breathe. Long enough for him to smile at Pete and say, “I love you, too. So, so much.” And then they’re together— passionately, wonderfully, perfectly— once more.

Pete melts into Patrick, certain that he can feel his heart kicking in his chest once more as Patrick’s hands run along his skin. He’s not sure if the water streaming down his cheeks are from the rain or the relief that Patrick loves him.

When Patrick pulls back for breath, it’s with swollen lips and flushed cheeks. His smile hasn’t left his face, hasn’t dimmed a watt since Pete had confessed his love. His lips part as if to speak and Pete holds his breath.

Instead, all that escapes is a dramatic  _ Achoo! _

Pete blinks, jumping at the sudden noise, before shifting his expression into a teasing smile. “Hey, I thought you’d be doing well in the rain, all things considered.”

Patrick rolls his eyes but leans into Pete’s hug when the other boy wraps his arms around his shivering frame. “Nah, I usually spend the month in a really warm bath or an inflatable pool in the basement. It sucks to be stuck there but whatever.”

Pete hums at Patrick’s words, lifting him up effortlessly without warning. Patrick squeals at the sudden action, flopping around like a, well, like a fish out of water. Pete laughs and shifts so he’s holding him bridal style. “You know, you’re in luck. I’ve got a bath at my house.”

“Oh, yes, lucky me,” Patrick says in the driest tone possible as he wraps his arms around Pete’s neck. “You have a bathtub.” 

“Yep!” Pete says proudly. He waits for a second, licking his lips, before continuing. “I could also probably find out where that witch is. I know her name and everything. Maybe we can get her to change you back.”

Patrick’s silent, his soft breaths brushing over Pete’s skin in a way that causes the vampire to feel chills.

“No,” Patrick says, at last, surprising Pete and sounding like he’s even surprising himself. “I don’t…I don’t think I mind. Not if I have you to help me with it.”

Pete warms instantly. “Really?”

“Really,” Patrick says, nodding sharply. His tail wiggles around, like he’s trying to kick his legs thoughtfully. “Then again, I don’t want to be a hassle. I mean, I don’t want you to have to carry me around all the time. And I get it if you think the tail is still weird.”

“Trust me,” Pete says, pulling Patrick closer to his chest, “you could never be a hassle and the tail is freaking cute. Besides, I really don’t mind holding you.”

He expects a blush and murmured ‘whatever’. Instead, Patrick grins and snuggles his head against Pete’s shoulder, holding tight and pressing impossibly close.

“You know,” he says, “I don’t mind, either.”

Pete smiles at Patrick’s words and, as he runs home impossibly fast, he realizes that he doesn’t quite feel cursed.

With Patrick’s fingers tangling in his hair and his laughter filling his ears, Pete’s never felt so blessed. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was really excited to write this one so I so hope that you liked it! I think it turned out well but, of course, leave me a comment to let me know what you think! It means a lot whenever I hear back from any of you :)
> 
> Also, I love this AU so please feel free to slip into my writing tumblr (hum-my-name.tumblr.com) or even my regular tumblr (now-press-rewind) to share some headcanons about it! Who knows, I might even write a small drabble for your ideas :)
> 
> Have a nice day!!!


	4. Pumpkin Patch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Pete and Patrick hunt for the perfect pumpkin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there! Not much to say other than this one was surprisingly fun to write! Compared to the last one's plot, it's pretty tame but it was also one of the few times I feel like I might be doing fluff right. Anyway, thanks to anyone and everyone that reads, comments, or leaves kudos. It means a ton! Enjoy!

Really, Patrick knows he has no reason to complain. The colors of the pumpkin patch are the most spectacular reds and oranges that dance along earthy browns and luscious greens. Children laugh in the background, painting the air with their joy, and the crowds he and Pete had worried about seem to have disappeared. The feeling of Fall is everywhere, from the hundreds of pumpkins surrounding them to the way Pete’s oversized hoodie tries its best to keep Patrick warm.

Its best, however, isn’t exactly working.

“Come on, Pete,” Patrick whines, blinking sporadically as the wind blows dirt into his face. “How hard can it be to pick a pumpkin?”

“Any pumpkin? A few seconds,” Pete responds, kneeling down to poke at an overly plump pumpkin. “But the  _ perfect  _ pumpkin? Well, that could take all day, babe.”

Patrick wrinkles his nose at both the answer and the dust settling on his skin. Another shiver runs through his body and he shakes dramatically, glancing around with a sigh. 

Patrick knows it’s practically tradition for Pete to come and spend all day at the pumpkin patch, taking hours to pick whichever one best fits his mood for that day. In years past, Pete had been more than happy to go with Joe or Andy or any of their other friends, Patrick glancing at the weather and promising that he trusted Pete to pick the best one without his help. Besides, Patrick looked forward to watching what Pete would bring back each time, whether he’d go the more traditional route or return with something so strangely shaped it hardly resembled a pumpkin at all. Regardless, there’d always be laughter and teasing and “well, you pick it out next time!” 

This year, however, Pete was actually able to drag Patrick along in, Patrick might add, a completely unfair way.

“It’s going to be our first Halloween as a married couple,” Pete had said, eyes wide and pleading as he pointed to the golden band around his finger. “Don’t you want to help make it perfect?”

How on earth was Patrick supposed to argue with that?

So, Patrick found himself shaking like a leaf in a storm, glaring at the massive amount of pumpkins surrounding them.

“They all look the same,” Patrick says, shoving his toe against a smaller one by his foot. “There’s no possible way to say that just one is better than any of the other dozens that look just like it.”

“Sure there is,” Pete says, standing up and wiping the mud off his hands. “You just know when you see it. You know, like when you see your soulmate.”

“Or hot chocolate,” Patrick says, instantly distracted by the steaming foam cups held in the hands of some teens as they walk by. He licks his lips, practically drooling at the sight. “Hey, is it cool with you if I go grab some hot chocolate?”

“Yeah, sure,” Pete says, dropping down once more to inspect the skin of another pumpkin. “It’s by the front, right?”

“Yeah, I think I saw a snack cart a bit back that way,” Patrick says. “You want me to get you something while I’m over there?”

Pete looks up with a teasing grin. “The perfect pumpkin?”

Patrick rolls his eyes with a fond smile, reaching out to flick Pete softly on the head. “That’s your job.”

Pete just laughs and waves Patrick off, making him promise to hurry back before Pete gets too far from his current spot. Patrick swears to be quick even though he can’t imagine Pete moving on too quickly— not with how thorough his inspections are.

Patrick follows the sound of kids laughing and parents shouting, encountering the crafts area that had been set up next to the snack stand. He gets in line, unable to prevent himself from smiling at the children running around and chasing anything in sight. Even in the cold, families spending time together warms his heart and he sighs contently.

The line moves forward and he finds he can’t look away from the toys and pumpkin decorations littering the ground. He feels silly for the smile it brings to his face but he’s always absolutely adored children. He and Pete have talked about starting a family before but ultimately decided it’s too early in the marriage to start busying it with responsibilities like that. Still, the thoughts of little kid-sized toys and gadgets are some of Patrick’s favorite daydreams. 

The line moves forward once more and Patrick’s still thinking of miniature hats and scarves when he sees it.

_ The best pumpkin ever. _

His jaw drops and his eyes widen, his smile not once leaving his face even as the girl running the snack stands asks in a bored tone, “How can I help?”

Patrick points towards the baby girl seated in a stroller a few feet away, slamming her hands happily against a pumpkin. 

“Where can I get a pumpkin like that?”

The girl at the snack stand raises an eyebrow. “Um. Not here.”

“Oh, yeah, I figured. But. Like.  _ Where? _ ”

The girl sighs, shoulders slumping as she points down the right, past all the children. “Down that way. If you go behind the craft’s area you’ll see a couple carts filled with ‘em. Now, are you actually ordering anything? ‘Cause, like, there are people waiting.”

“Oh, no. Sorry,” Patrick says, distracted as he steps out of the line. He still hasn’t stopped staring at the pumpkin. Pete’s gonna  _ flip _ when he sees it. “Thank you!”

“Whatever,” the girl says. Patrick doesn’t care, his mind too filled with thoughts of the perfect pumpkin.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

When he finds Pete again— still in the same spot, just like Patrick predicted— Patrick’s smiling stupidly at the pumpkin in his hands. He can’t stop staring at it, can’t stop laughing to himself about how  _ he  _ picked the best pumpkin this year and how he’s gonna rub it in Pete’s face later— after the joy of the pumpkin has rubbed off, of course.

He can’t help it! It’s just…it’s perfect! It’s wonderful and it’s adorable and he loves it so much he’s already thinking about names. He doesn’t care to wonder if people even name pumpkins, not when he’s already mentally referring to this one as  _ Prince _ .

“Hey! Patrick!” Pete calls, drawing Patrick’s attention away from his pumpkin and towards his husband. Pete smiles before looking back down at his task of shoving an abnormally large pumpkin to the side. “Have a successful hot chocolate trip?”

Patrick just holds out the thing in his hands. “I found the perfect pumpkin.” 

It’s the quickest Patrick has ever gotten Pete’s attention.

“What, really? Oh my god, let me see, I have to make sure—” He stops, standing before Patrick with an unreadable expression on his face. He raises a hand and hovers it over the pumpkin before thinking better and pulling away. “Patrick, that’s the smallest fucking pumpkin I’ve ever seen.”

“I know, right?” Patrick squeals, pulling it back in front of his face to better stare at it. It's incredibly small for a pumpkin, fitting snugly in the palm of his hand with a vibrant orange shade and a wonderful rounded shape. He giggles, poking at it. “Isn’t it awesome?”

“You and I have very different definitions of the word awesome,” Pete says. Patrick ignores him.

“I can’t get over how cute it is,” he states. Pete laughs and Patrick’s smile only grows at the sound.

“Fine, we can get it but there’s no way it’s going on the porch,” Pete says. Patrick’s eyes snap away from the pumpkin and up at Pete. His gasp is so offended it’s almost as if Pete had insulted him directly.

“Why not?” He asks, cradling the pumpkin even closer to his chest. Pete raises an eyebrow but laughs again.

“Dude, look at it!” He exclaims. “It’s freaking tiny!”

“Well, I mean,  _ I’m  _ pretty tiny, er, I mean, small, or short or something.” Patrick winces at his choice of words but carries on regardless. "Whatever, you know what I mean. Neither you or I are very tall but that’s never stopped either of us from following our dreams.”

“Patrick,” Pete says, sounding as if he's trying to calm down a child. “It’s a pumpkin. I don’t think…Look, they don’t necessarily have dreams.”

“You don’t know that,” Patrick says, rolling his eyes and trying to keep his lips from betraying him with a smile. “It could have, like, spent its entire life wanting to be displayed on Halloween night, yeah? And what if it wants to be just like every other bigger pumpkin? You ever think of that, Pete? You ever think of how, like, the smaller pumpkins feel all left out all the time? I bet it sucks. A lot. So. Prince is going on the porch. He's too tiny and adorable to be left inside.”

It’s the word “Prince” that finally makes Pete break. 

“Oh my god!” He says, laughing with his entire body. He struggles to get any words out, Patrick watching him with raised eyebrows. Pete holds onto his sides and only increases in volume, cackling loud enough for a mother a few pumpkins over to look at them worriedly. He’s not able to speak until after he’s nearly fallen twice. “Okay, okay. I give in. We can get the pumpkin but, please, for the love of god, don’t name it Prince.”

Patrick frowns, pretending to consider the offer, before giving in. “Fine. What do  _ you  _ think we should name it.”

Pete doesn’t even hesitate, swallowing down another chuckle and grinning madly. “Patrick.”

“What?” Patrick asks, looking down at the pumpkin and then back at Pete’s smirk. “Why? Because it’s tiny?

“No,” Pete says. He steps forward, placing a cold hand on Patrick's cheek and a warm kiss on his lips.“Because it’s adorable.”

<><><> <><><> <><><>

A few nights later, Pete and Patrick stand outside their fully decorated homes, arms wrapped around each other with smiles on their faces.

“The cobwebs were a bit much,” Pete admits, laughing lightly at the white cotton covering every possible inch of the porch.

“And the orange lights are probably a fire hazard,” Patrick says, grinning at Pete as the Halloween lights shade his skin in a warm glow.

“Yeah. At least the pumpkins look nice,” Pete says. Patrick laughs and hides his face against Pete’s shoulder.

“I still can’t believe you did that. You’re so cheesy,” he says. Pete’s arm tightens around him.

“I let you get the baby pumpkins. You owe me some cheesiness.”

“You owe me some hot chocolate,” Patrick mumbles.

“Already inside,” Pete says. Patrick looks up, eyes narrowed.

“Then what, pray tell, are we doing out here?” He asks. Pete laughs and presses a kiss against his forehead, linking their hands together and grinning at the way the orange lights strung up along the porch cause their rings to twinkle.

“Making sure everything’s perfect,” he says. Patrick shakes his head fondly and brings their joined hands up to his lips, kissing each of Pete’s knuckles.

“We’re together,” he says. “Could it really be anything else?”

Pete laughs, a sound that always fills Patrick’s heart. “When you put it like that, I guess not. Now, let’s head inside. The hot chocolate might be getting cold and I want to get to it before the trick-or-treaters come.”

Patrick agrees, following Pete in with a loving smile and a warm embrace. Before the door shuts behind them, though, he casts one last glance at the pumpkins outside.

They’re both too tiny to carve, seated next to each at the edge of the porch. One wears a small hat Pete had bought at a pet shot, a pair of glasses drawn on beneath it; the other has a messy smiley face scribbled on, a more detailed drawing of Pete’s bartskull shown off at the bottom.

Patrick grins.

They really do have the perfect pumpkins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked this one! It took a bit of time to decide on a specific plot because the phrase "pumpkin patch" just overwhelmed me with ideas, haha. Regardless, I'm really happy with how this turned out so I really hope you liked it as well.
> 
> Also, I've been working on the latest chapter of my other fic, as well as a one-shot for the Until We Die fic. So, stick around for those! (And, if you haven't read them....I'm not gonna self-promote too heavily but if you happened to end up looking at them, I wouldn't complain).
> 
> Anyway, thank you so much for reading and be sure to let me know what you think! Have an awesome day/night!


	5. Leaves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Leave my leaves alone!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No one in this fic says the quote that I used for the summary. I had to cut it out in the editing process so it ended up there instead, haha. Anyway, thanks so much to everyone who's been enjoying the one-shots so far! I wasn't sure I'd be able to pull it off (and I am still a bit behind with how many I should have done by now, whoops) but you all definitely make it that much more enjoyable and hopefully the confidence that brings me shows up in the writing. You deserve the best!

It’s been three hours and fifty-five minutes in the brutal Chicago cold but Patrick’s finally content that he’s finished collecting all the leaves in his and Pete’s front yard.

His teeth chatter as he reaches out with the rake to pull a few stragglers into the pile he’s created near the edge of the lawn. His hands ache and his nose won’t stop running but he’s intent on finishing the task at hand before the weather drops to freezing like the forecast predicted would happen later in the afternoon.

“Almost done. Just a few more,” he mutters to himself, his breath clouding before his face as a testament to how little time he has before it starts to get much colder. He shivers at the realization, wishing he’d thought to put on a thicker coat this morning. Of course, he could have gone into the house anytime to grab a jacket but, by the time he realized this, he was already halfway done. 

He pauses to take a breath and glances around the yard for any leftovers, humming a new song idea to distract himself from the disappointment he feels when he watches a group of three or four leaves fall from one of the trees Pete insisted on getting. He shuts his eyes and rests his head on the tip of the rake, taking a few deep breaths, before sighing and walking over to the leaves.

“Almost done,” he says, a mantra at this point. Almost done. He just needs to bag these up for the trash and then he can spend the rest of the day resting. Pete should be done with his meeting soon and Patrick daydreams about cuddling on the couch with him, a hot cup of tea in his hands as they joke around and talk about their day. Maybe Patrick will even have time to call Pete and convince him to pick something up from that Thai place they like. Patrick grins. He’ll totally be able to convince him; it is his husband’s day to make dinner, after all.

Patrick glances over at the pile as he finishes up, glaring at each tree and daring them to make him work a second longer. When none give in, he nods to himself and heads to the garage to grab a trash bag. 

It’s when he’s on his way back, still humming quietly and shaking the bag open that he hears it: Pete’s laughter followed by a loud crunching sound.

“No,” Patrick breathes, dropping the bag and rushing back out to check on the pile. “No, no, no, no, please  _ god  _ no—”

“Hey, Rickster!” Pete says, all smiles. “I hope you don’t mind, it was just way too tempting.”

Patrick only stares.

It comes to him in snippets, his disbelief trying to make sense of how easy it is for Pete to undo hours of Patrick’s hard work.

Leaves fly everywhere, scattering onto the sidewalk and across the yard. The rake rests forgotten on the ground, looking as tired as Patrick feels. The wind picks up just like Patrick knew it would, kicking the leaves around like playthings. And, Pete. Oh, god, Pete. He's sitting in the middle of where a giant leaf pile used to be, a childlike smile on his lips and two red leaves clinging to his dark hair.

His lips move, calling Patrick’s name, but the younger man pays no attention.

“Four hours,” he says, at last, blinking away his stunned expression. “Four hours all gone to waste in less than one second. Oh my god.”

How long is it going to take this time with the brutality of the breeze and cruelty of the cold? How long until he finds the will to start again? If he waits until tomorrow, more leaves are certain to fall and it will just be more work than it was before.

Pete tilts his head to the side like a lost dog. He looks at Patrick like he’s trying to read his thoughts.

“What?” He asks. A leaf falls from his head onto the grass and Patrick finally loses it.

“Four hours! I’ve been out here raking for four goddamn hours, Pete! Do you know how long that is?” He shouts. Pete scratches his head, dislodging the second leaf.

“Um, four hours?”

“Yes! And you just came by and, and, undid all the work!” Patrick pulls on his hair, growing more irrational with each passing second. “I’ll be lucky if I have the time to do it again before the end of the week, Pete! And, like, it’s gonna be freezing for the rest of the week, you know that, right? I just wanted to get this over with and have a quiet night but, of course, you had to jump into it.  _ Why did you have to jump into it? _ ”

“Dude, chill out,” Pete says instead of answering Patrick’s question. He stands, brushing off the leaves sticking to him in a way that makes a muscle near Patrick’s eye twitch. “They’re just leaves.”

“They’re  _ messy _ ,” Patrick snaps, glaring at the leaves at Pete’s feet. “And I worked hard on cleaning them up. God, Pete, can’t you understand that? You know what? Whatever. I’ll just….I’ll do it later. I’ll be freezing and probably dying but I’ll do it later. I don’t have time to deal with this right now.” 

Without another word, he storms inside.

The warmth of the house works to calm him down a fraction, though he still mutters angrily to himself as he picks out a tea bag and tries to distract himself with that. God, can’t Pete understand that Patrick just wanted to make sure their yard looked decent? They’re grown men. What would the neighbors start thinking if they neglected their own lawn? And, he might add, what adult looks at a leaf pile and fails to think about the time and effort it took to make it? Besides, Patrick grumbles mentally, their backyard is just as littered with leaves. If Pete had  _ really  _ wanted to jump into a pile, he could have just gone back there to create his own.

Patrick sighs and shakes his head, taking his tea when it’s done and heading to the only thing that calms him down in a time such as this: music. 

He doesn’t keep track of the time as he messes around with melodies and notes, placing his headphones on and claiming an entire couch to lounge on. It’s a bitter move, one that reminds him of how much he’d been looking forward to cuddling with Pete. Not that he’d admit it after the whole leaf fiasco.

He sips on his tea and works on the music, letting both of them help him to unwind. Sore and tight muscles from raking start to loosen up, fitting against the lush couch and tempting Patrick to fall asleep. In the middle of playing through one of their songs— frowning because the piano in the middle doesn’t sound quite right— his eyelids grow heavy and he decides it wouldn't hurt to give in. He shuts off his computer and places his now empty mug on the coffee table before him. Taking off his headphones and rolling onto his side with a yawn, he pretends he’s content with falling asleep by himself.

But the wind outside mocks him with a vicious howl, slapping against the side of the house and reminding him just how much work he’ll have to do upon waking.

“Pete,” Patrick calls out in an almost whiny tone, willing to forget about his childish antics for a bit. “Turn the heater on, the wind’s not gonna die down anytime soon.”

No response.

Patrick cracks an eye open suspiciously, listening more carefully this time. “Pete?”

Again, silence answers and Patrick’s forced to sit up as worry pools in his gut. “Pete, this isn’t funny.”

He’s already standing and looking around wildly before Pete has a chance to respond— not that he does. 

Patrick bites his lip as he takes in the empty house, thinking back to their argument— was it an argument? Patrick just thought it was a small discussion about yard work— and tries to recall if he’d been unfair. He hadn’t shouted out any insults or names, had he? He'd kept his tone calm, right? Oh god, did he yell at him right in front of the house?

Ok, he thinks as his worry becomes fear. Maybe he was a bit mean. Still, Pete would've said something if he went too far! He's never let Patrick get away with such behavior before!

Patrick starts looking for his phone in the cushions of the couch, hoping to call around and ask if anyone’s seen Pete anywhere. Patrick knows his husband and he knows he has a nasty habit of storming off without a destination in mind anytime Patrick becomes too stubborn to deal with things rationally. 

His fingers wrap around the cool casing of his phone and he heaves out a sigh, already unlocking the screen and preparing to go through his entire contact list in search of Pete.

_ “Goddamnit, fucking wind!” _

Patrick pauses at the sound of a familiar voice outside, shouting out curses without a care in the world. He drops the phone back onto the couch and follows the noise. 

“Just stay in one fucking place you useless pieces of plant!” 

When Patrick glances out the front door, he finds Pete with one hand gripping the rake and the other forming a fist, shaking it angrily at the ground. “Just stay in a pile!”

Patrick watches with an amused laugh as Pete struggles to rake the leaves into a decent heap, the wind meaner to him than it was to Patrick. Just as Pete pulls a rake-full of leaves towards the edge of the lawn, the wind attacks and sends them back to the other end. Pete seems a second away from breaking the rake over his knee and calling it quits.

Patrick just shakes his head fondly, though he does cast a worried glance at Pete’s lack of jacket or gloves. He’d just come back from a meeting, Patrick remembers, he wasn’t exactly dressed for an extended amount of time outside. With a small laugh at his husband’s endearing antics, Patrick turns and heads back to the kitchen.

As the water for hot chocolate begins to boil, Patrick grabs a blanket from the living room and takes it to the dryer, wincing when he catches sight of the dismal weather outside. A part of him expects Pete to come storming in any second; another, stronger, part knows that he’ll stay outside until the job is done.

Patrick can’t have that. Not in this type of cold.

It only takes a few minutes to prepare everything, decorating the hot chocolate with too much whipped cream and sprinkles because he knows it’ll make Pete smile. He takes the blanket from the dryer and buries his face in the heated fabric to muffle his giggles at the thought of Pete all wrapped up in it. Oh goodness, Patrick thinks with another shake of his head. The married life has made him so soft.

Still, it’s hard to blame himself when he heads back outside, correctly clad in a coat and gloves this time, to see Pete kicking at a leaf that won’t leave the rake. He’s not cursing quite so loudly anymore, though Patrick catches the odd insult here and there. If Patrick was frustrated earlier, Pete’s absolutely stressed. And, right now, Patrick has the perfect cure for that.

He gives no warning before walking up behind Pete and tossing the warm blanket over his shoulders, wrapping it around his arms and neck to ease the surprise attack. Pete jumps at the action but turns around with a confused smile. Patrick eases the bemusement away with a soft kiss.

“I’m sorry for yelling,” Patrick says, keeping a hand on the back of Pete’s neck. His skin’s colder than Patrick would like and it only makes him that much more certain that they need to be inside as soon as possible. Pete, however, just wraps his arms around Patrick’s waist and pulls him into a warm embrace.

“I’m sorry for ruining the yard,” he says. Patrick giggles and shakes his head.

“It’s fine, you don’t need to apologize. Honestly, I’d be more worried if you  _ didn’t  _ act like a child anytime you were given the chance,” he says, eyes crinkling as he smiles at the older man. Pete’s nose wrinkles at the playful jab and Patrick can’t resist kissing it. “Speaking of which, I made you some really sugary hot chocolate.”

Just as he expected, Pete’s entire expression lights up. “Really?”

“Yep,” Patrick says, pulling back but reaching out to entwine their hands together. “But you better drink it quickly. I still want the chance to cuddle with my husband before the day is through.”

Pete grins and it’s enough to make Patrick forget all about the leaves in their front yard. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think that was fluffy? I don't know, there was a moment of almost fighting/worry but I think it's fine, haha. Ah, don't mind me, just worrying for no reason.
> 
> Anyway, I won't bore you with an extra long note down here, just let me know what you think of the one-shots and hopefully I'll see you back here for the next one! See ya!


	6. Caramel Apples

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caramel's always right, apparently

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! It's been a while but I actually have a valid excuse, haha. Midterm tests and papers have taken up so much time this week but I think they're mostly done with so we can share in some fun Peterick Octoberness together! Also, this one took way more words/times than I expected. I don't even know what happened, I wrote the outline in the middle of the night and just went with the plot in the morning so. I guess this happened.
> 
> Tiny, tiny disclaimer: this is a dad-based one so, like, I know there's controversy over mentioning family members so I compromised? Like, imagine that the wives mentioned are not the actual wives. Especially bc I'm sure Elisa is amazing. Please don't fight me, I don't know if there are rules about this.

After a long morning of work calls and traffic jams, Pete runs into his son’s school thirty minutes later than he said he would. He gives his name to the woman running the front desk, signs in and follows her directions to the main gym. He checks the time on his phone repeatedly in the twenty seconds it takes to run there. The students are on a trip to a local pumpkin patch and the hallways are empty but that doesn’t stop him from tripping over his own feet into some lockers as he frenetic nature gets in the way of trying to slow down.

He doesn’t slow down until he’s standing in the gym, admiring all the work that’s already been done.

Black and orange streamers decorate the elementary school gymnasium; balloons of the same shade litter the floor. A cameraman sets up in front of a photo area where some of the more artistic parents had painted a spooky forest scene onto a large piece of cardboard. Paper ghosts and spiders stick to the walls and fake tombstones pop up randomly from the floor. Pete grins. It’s like Halloween threw up in here.

“Hello, sir? Are you looking for somebody?’

Pete turns around to see a teacher smiling patiently at him— the same smile he imagines she gives to her students. She cradles a large bowl of candy in her arms and it takes longer than it should for Pete to convince himself not to steal a piece.

“Oh, no,” he says, tearing his gaze away from the sweets. “My son, Bronx, signed me up as a volunteer for this, um, Halloween party? I don’t know, he’s still at the age where he thinks it’s neat for his dad to show up at his school so I couldn’t really resist. Is there…I mean, it all looks pretty set up but is there anything you still need help with?”

The calm smile never leaves the woman’s lips as she nods. “Well, first, it’s not a Halloween party. We call it a Fall Festival. You know. To prevent any controversy with the parents.”

Pete nods even as his eyebrows furrow together. “Oh, um, okay. That’s a thing they get mad about?”

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” the teacher says with a laugh. “Anyway, since you arrived a bit late I’m sorry to say that the decoration and game supervising positions have been filled. Do you, well… Would you happen to be interested in helping the kitchen? We have someone back there already but I’m sure he’d appreciate the extra hands.”

“Yeah, sure, definitely,” Pete says. “What kinda stuff would I be doing?”

“Oh, nothing too difficult,” she says. “We’re just serving some caramel apples to the kids. I think they’re being prepped right about now. The kitchen’s connected to the cafeteria. Do you need help getting there?”

Pete shakes his head. “Nah, I got it. Thanks, though!”

The woman smiles and leaves after a short goodbye.

Pete grins at the thought of being the _cool_ dad with caramel apples and hurries to find the kitchen. He only hopes the other guy— whoever he is— doesn’t get in the way of Pete’s status with his son.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

The sugary scent of hot caramel greets Pete the second he walks through the kitchen doors, the heat from the stovetop filling the room almost as much as the sound of someone’s gentle singing. A simple smile fits easily on Pete’s face as the voice— smooth and soothing— glides alongside the warmth within the room, an atmosphere promising comfort and ease.

Stepping inside, his first view is of another man stirring a pot of melted caramel, a wooden spoon dangling loosely from his fingers. Pete’s eyes trail the pale skin up to the blue cardigan that covers his arms and hugs his soft form. A tuft of red-brown hair peeks out over his neck from underneath a slightly askew dad cap, the man’s bouncing figure as he sings to himself— something vaguely reminiscent of dusty record shops and pretentious music snobs— making it hard to pay attention to much else.

The door slams shut behind Pete and the singing slams to a halt as the other man turns around. As striking as his blue-green eyes are and as charming as his smile is, Pete’s eyes fixate on the smudge of caramel decorating his cheek.

This guy’s a parent? Like, a full-grown adult? Pete’s mind swims with the confusion that this other dad is  _totally fucking adorable_.

“Oh, hey!” The guy says, waving the spoon in his hand and dripping caramel all over the floor. “I didn’t know they were sending someone else in. I’m Patrick, nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, nice to meet you. I’m Pete. They told me to help with the apples,” Pete says, walking across the room to him. “I’m guessing you already got started? Sorry, I wanted to be here earlier but life has a way of screwing things up, you know? Oh and, I was wondering, are we gonna be handing them out to the kids? I’m only really here because my son asked me to be so I’m hoping to see him.”

“Oh, definitely,” Patrick says, though Pete’s not quite certain which part he’s answering. He turns to gesture at dozens of caramel apples. “I had some help earlier. Some of the, um, more enthusiastic moms? They’re pretty obsessed with seeing their kids, too, though, so they left after most were made. Who’s yours, by the way?”

“Who’s my… Wait, my, like, apple? Or enthusiastic mom?”

Patrick laughs, his entire body shaking with the action. “No, no, sorry. I tend to, like, sort of, ramble at times? And switch topics without realizing it. I meant kid. Who’s your kid?”

From anyone else, Pete supposes it would sound creepy or intrusive. But Patrick has rosy cheeks and bright eyes and he finds himself spitting out his son’s name before thinking it through. “Bronx. Wentz. He’s in Miss Williams class so I don’t know if—”

“Hey, same as my Declan!” Patrick exclaims, catching Pete off guard. “I can’t recall him mentioning a Bronx, though, sorry. But it’d be so cool if they were friends. I'm one of those parents that just has to make sure their kid has good friends, you know?”

Pete’s halfway to agreeing with him before the name rings through his mind again.

Declan.

Wait.

The same Declan that…

“Hold up,” Pete says, smile falling from his lips. “Your son stole the student council position from Bronx!”

“Wait, what?” Patrick’s eyebrows knit together. “He did?”

“Yes!”

Pete remembers all too well the dejection in Bronx’s eyes as he came home after the school’s election day, the speech they’d worked so hard on balled up in the bottom of his backpack. Pete was never one for student government and the like but Bronx had wanted it the same way Pete used to want to be a soccer star. They’d made countless posters and catchy slogans, bonding while Pete's youngest son, Saint, tried to help by pouring glitter on everything. Pete had sat and listened as Bronx babbled on about all he’d do as a prestigious member of the council, sounding just like the students from Pete’s law school— minus all the vocab words that still haunt Pete to this day. He’d been so certain his son would get voted in, so positive that everyone would love him just as much as he does.

But Bronx had come back, bottom lip trembling and white-knuckled as he spat out which kid had beat him.

 _“Declan Stumph,_ ” he had hissed, rubbing furiously at his eyes. Pete had tried to console him, told him that he tried his best and Declan won fair and square. There was always next year to try again but those words came before Pete knew the truth-- before Bronx shouted out that: _“He brought in cookies for the entire class before giving his speech!”_

And Pete knew enough about bribery and dirty politics to side with his son and swear to avenge him.

“I’m… I’m a bit confused,” Patrick says, dropping the spoon back into the pot and lowering the heat with an ease that screams his title of an expert baker. “Maybe, um. Maybe an elaboration would help?”

“Oh, I don’t think you need any elaboration,” Pete says. In the back of his mind, he realizes that, maybe, it’s a bit juvenile to be so upset. But cookies on election day? Really? Who lets their kid do that? “You seem quite at home in the kitchen.”

Patrick looks back over his shoulder, confusion blending into defense even as an awkward smile lingers on his lips. “Oh, are you talking about the cookies? That was just some fun, don’t tell me you’re upset over it.”

“Some fun?” How could this guy think that destroying Bronx’s hopes and dreams is fun? “It won’t be fun when Decker ends up a corrupt politician and it’s all traced back to bribing his classmates to vote for him.”

Pete watches the exact moment the Defensive Dad Mode starts in Patrick’s brain.

“Okay, one? It’s Declan, not Decker,” he says, turning around and holding up a finger for emphasis. Pete ignores how cute his now reddened cheeks are. “If you’re gonna talk about my kid, at least get his name right. Two— it’s an elementary school election. It’s not that hard to win over a class of twenty other children, with or without stale cookies that were made on a whim the night before. What a kid _does_ need to win, though? Is the responsibility to work for it himself.”

Pete’s blood simmers as he narrows his eyes. “You don’t expect me to believe the bribery was the kid’s idea.”

“Declan had said he wanted to do something nice for his classmates. It’s not that hard to believe.” Patrick pauses, a smirk sliding onto his face. “Though, I suppose, that all depends on how you raise _your_ kids.”

“Are you implying that—” Pete cuts himself off as Patrick’s eyebrow raise, a challenge to continue. He lets his hands fall from where they’d been threateningly gesturing through the air and lets out a heavy breath. “Whatever. Let’s just get these apples done.”

If Patrick’s thrown off by Pete’s change of subject, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he nods, tension falling from his shoulders like a shift in a breeze, and faces the apples he’d been showing off before.

“I’m going to hope I don’t have to actually show you how to make these,” he says, a hint of bitterness still lingering in his tone. “I mean, I can but it’d be a huge waste of time and—”

“I know how to make them,” Pete says, rolling his eyes. God, this man’s infuriating! He insults his kid and then he insults Pete? He’s almost embarrassed to remember how he’d been admiring him upon first stepping in. Still… a bad attitude doesn’t quite hide the pretty shade of his lips or the pale expanse of skin or— _Stop_. “Why are they all so boring?”

“What?” Patrick asks, frowning at his perfectly made caramel apples. Not one thing’s out of place but, Pete knows, his eyes still scan to see what he’s missing. “I made these exactly right.”

“Yeah but you’re forgetting it’s a _kid’s_ festival. They’re gonna want some sprinkles or something, dude,” he says. Patrick’s nose wrinkles.

“That’s a waste of time. We need to have a certain amount done before it starts and your argum— your _discussion_ from earlier set me back quite a bit. Besides, caramel’s never wrong,” he says.

“The conversation was a mutual one,” Pete says, already digging through cabinets and cupboards for some sort of decorations. He only finds a handful of sprinkle containers but it’s enough. “And you’re crazy if you think that the kids aren’t gonna want something fun on their treats.”

“They’re getting candy prizes in the gym. They hardly need more sugar,” Patrick snaps.

“It’s a Halloween party,” Pete says, emphasizing each syllable just to be annoying. “They deserve all the sugar they want.”

“Not if—! Okay, whatever.” Patrick pauses, taking deep breaths and pinching at the bridge of his nose. “There’s clearly no winning with you. But I refuse to waste my time with candies and sweets. If you want to do it that badly, be my guest to make your own batch. You’re not getting any help from me.”

Pete scoffs, though he’s surprised Patrick gave in so easily. “What, too good for it?”

“No,” Patrick says with a glare. “Too focused on getting the job done _right_. Now, I’m going to split the supplies in half. You get your apples and I get mine. Keep your… sprinkles and whatever else to yourself. We’ll have to share the caramel, though. Please try to be mature about it.”

“I resent that you think I’d be anything but,” Pete says. Patrick turns away.

“I resent that you gave me a reason to think it at all.”

Pete bites his lip, hating how easily Patrick can keep up in an argument or fight. Seriously, the guy’s basically a cherub. Rounded cheeks, pink lips, gentle voice… Is it really fair that he’s able to spit out one line retorts so easily?

“My apples are gonna be so much better than yours,” Pete says once all the supplies have been divided across the counters. Patrick laughs out a disbelieving sound.

“There’s that maturity again.” He looks up from under the brim of his cap, an eyebrow raised. It shouldn’t be as hot as it is. “We’re not making this into a contest.”

Pete wasn’t suggesting that but, hey, if that’s where Patrick thought he was going, who is he to stop it? He grins in a way that feels more like baring his teeth and grabs his own spoon for the caramel.

“Oh, my dear Patrick,” he says, loving the way Patrick’s eyes glint with anger at the sound of his name in such a mocking tone. “Let the games begin.”

<><><> <><><> <><><>

Grab an apple. Remove the stem. Stab it with a popsicle stick. Dip it in the caramel. Roll it in some sprinkles. Leave it on the parchment paper to dry. Done.

Pete’s only been at it for about twenty minutes but he’s got this system down.

His batch of decorated apples fills the counter beside him, sticky lines of caramel smudging the gloves he’d found. Patrick might find it more sanitary to wash his hands after every five apples but Pete feels better knowing he’s not gonna start some schoolwide virus by being a gloveless jerk. Even if the gloves are tight enough that small rips have appeared on the tips of his fingers. It’s the thought that counts.

Patrick hums to himself as he finishes up another apple, setting it with the rest of his— boring, plain, unexciting— apples. Pete focuses on the smug grin on his lips rather than admit he misses the singing he’d heard before. His eyes drop to count Patrick’s apples and then flash to his own to see who’s most behind. It’s rather close if he just counts the ones Patrick’s made since Pete’s arrival. Still, Pete sighs heavily when he realizes that he needs six more in order to be ahead.

Patrick sets down another apple and Pete sighs again. Seven more.

The door opens suddenly and an older woman walks in, her dark red hair pulled up in a tight bun and wrinkles framing her smile.

“The festival will be beginning in just over an hour. I wanted to check on how the apples are going,” she says, hands clasped together excitedly. Her eyes land on Pete as she scans the room and her smile only grows. “Oh, how rude, I’m sorry. I don’t remember seeing you at any of the conferences. I’m Judith. The principal.”

“Oh,” Pete says. “Hi?”

Judith merely nods in response to his confused greeting and walks over, her sensible shoes clacking against the tile of the kitchen floor. She stops between the two men, glancing over both sets of apples.

Pete swallows. It feels odd like he’s being judged by the white and orange sprinkles he’d found in the back of a dusty drawer. Was he not supposed to use them? Was Patrick right about this taking too much time? Oh god, and he’s still seven behind in the count, there’s no way he’s ever going to be allowed back here. Stupid, stupid, _stupid_. He just had to let his stupid pride get in the way and now he’s going to be kicked out his son’s school and—

“Mr. Stumph,” Judith says, the smile blending into a frown. “Why are your apples so… plain?”

With the same urgency as an oven timer going off, Pete turns in time to watch a bright red blush fill Patrick’s cheeks.

“I wanted to get them all done on time,” he says, the same excuse he gave Pete earlier. “There are a lot of kids here and—”

“ —And kids are going to want something a bit more, oh, I don’t know, _exciting,_ I suppose.” Judith’s nose wrinkles as she glances over Patrick’s apples, her lips twisting in disappointment. “Now, I know you aren’t quite known for your ability to sympathize with others but at least try to understand how upset the children are going to be when only half of them receive actual candied apples. It’s too late to change any of the older ones but I want you to follow Mr… um, the example of your partner from here on out. Is that alright?”

Patrick’s lips form a thin line, pressed so tightly together that they’re beginning to turn white. He doesn’t respond, only nods his head in a sharp gesture of understanding. He doesn’t look at Judith, eyes focused firmly on the ground before him, but she smiles all the same.

“Good. Well, I’ll trust you two, then.” She turns to leave, calling out over her shoulder as she opens the door. “Oh, and Patrick? Please try to find some gloves.”

The door slams shut and Pete lets out a long breath.

“Well, she’s, um, something. Now, you ready to follow my example, partner?” Pete turns to Patrick, a smug smile on his lips, and prepares himself for a sassy comeback.

It doesn’t come.

Instead, what he receives is the sight of Patrick’s shaking hands balled into fists at his side and the sound of his mumbled curses. He doesn’t move for a long while, standing there with his eyes shut as if he’s forgotten he’s not alone.

“Um, Patrick?” Pete asks cautiously. The other man seems a second away from either breaking down or exploding and Pete’s not certain which one would be worse. “Everything okay? I mean, she was a bit tough on you but—”

“It’s fine.” Patrick’s eyes snap open in alarm at the sound of Pete’s voice, confirming the thought he’d not realized Pete was there. He turns away, shoulders tense. “She’s always like that. To me, at least. Friends with my wi— ex-wife. Apparently, she blames me for breaking her best friend’s heart even though the divorce wasn’t my idea, wasn’t even my _fault_. But, hey, I can’t stop her from thinking what she thinks so let’s just move on and make some damned apples.”

As always, Pete’s mouth works faster than his brain, spitting out the first question he can think of. “Why did you guys split up, then? If you didn’t want it.”

Patrick’s glare is murderous. “ _Don’t_ . We’re _not_ talking about this. Just make your apples and shut up.”

Pete tries his best to focus on how upset he’d been during his discussion with Patrick earlier, tries to find insult in the way he’d just been snapped at. It works for a moment, long enough to keep him from pressing for more details.

It doesn’t, however, work long enough for him to ignore Patrick’s shaking hands.

The other man pulls out a bowl and grabs a container of sprinkles Pete hadn’t gotten to yet. He yanks at the cap, his trembling hands refusing to let him get a good grip. His fingers continuously slip off of the side, his nails scraping along the plastic as they scramble for something to cling to. He’s a second away from making a mess, Pete’s sure of it.

“Here, let me,” he says, gently prying the sprinkles from Patrick’s fingers. He keeps his eyes away from Patrick’s face as he does so, though he catches sight of Patrick’s bottom lip held between his teeth as he looks down. His own hands struggle for a second before he pops the lid off, passing it back to Patrick without looking him in the eye.

“Thanks,” Patrick mutters, his voice small. It doesn’t sound right, not after how fiery he'd been when they had first met.

Pete supposes he could stop hating the guy long enough to get him smiling again.

“You know, if you pour them onto a plate, it’s easier to roll the apple around in. Caramel just gets stuck to the sides of a bowl,” Pete says, moving to stand next to him. Patrick eyes him warily before nodding and following Pete’s instructions. He still doesn’t speak; he still doesn’t smile. His cheeks burn red and Pete can nearly feel the shame and anger radiating off of him.

“Look, I know how much it sucks to lose a relationship,” he says, leaning against the counter as Patrick sets up his sprinkles. They’re pink and white, not quite Halloween but good enough for the time left. “My wife and I got a divorce right after Bronx was born. It wasn’t dramatic or forced by one person but it still hurt. You think you’re gonna have the rest of your life with this person but then someone starts acting different or you realize you were never right together to begin with. I’m not saying you have to talk to me about it; I’m just saying that I wouldn’t judge a thing you say if you do.”

The silence that follows grows longer than Pete had expected, his hopes of befriending Patrick dashing to pieces before his eyes. Patrick doesn’t nod this time, doesn’t show any semblance of hearing a word Pete said.

“Whatever, sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything,” Pete says, his own cheeks heating up now as he grabs an apple and works on yanking out the stem to distract himself. “You can use my sprinkles, by the way. They’re more Halloween themed and it would probably keep Judith from picking on you again.”

This time, Patrick scoffs. “I do not get ‘picked on’. This isn’t high school, Pete.”

“No,” Pete says, smiling in what he hopes is a kind way. “It’s an elementary school and the principal is a bitch.”

Patrick grins. It’s only for a second but it’s enough to ease some weight off of Pete’s chest.

They work on their apples in silence, setting up their own system without speaking. Pete uses the caramel while Patrick uses the sprinkles and vice versa, stepping around each other in a dance without any true rhythm. It’s nice in a way Pete wouldn’t have expected it to be.

Five minutes pass and Pete’s pouring more sprinkles onto their shared plate when Patrick finally decides to speak.

“It was because she found out I was bi. My wife, that is,” Patrick says, completely out of nowhere. Pete’s lips part but Patrick continues, his back still to Pete as heats up more caramel. “In retrospect, I shouldn’t have kept it from her for so long but you have to understand that I was still questioning that… that side of who I was when we first got together. I figured it didn’t matter and, for the longest time, it didn’t. I had a wife, I had a kid, no one needed to know how much I agreed with my wife each time she joked about some actor being attractive. But then I got drunk at one of her friends’ parties and someone said something about this singer coming out and I thought it was a great idea to… Never mind, I’m sure you can imagine.”

With Patrick’s sour tone and stiff posture, Pete imagines all too well what must have occurred. Patrick starts stirring the caramel, his free hand tightening around the wooden spoon at his side the more he speaks.

“Anyway, I won’t bore you with details, but my wife couldn’t stand that. She’s not homophobic, she said, just worried that I’d… that I’d realize I like guys better one day or whatever. She put up with it for a few days but eventually decided the stress of worrying whether my guy friends were just friends was too much for her. It was, and I quote, _incredibly harmful to her peace of mind_ ” Patrick laughs dryly, a harsh sound compared to the soft cadence of his voice. He shakes his head, turning to glance at Pete from over his shoulder. “Sorry. You probably don’t want to hear about all of this.”

“No, it’s fine!” Pete says, trying his best not to sound too invested in Patrick’s story. “I’m bi, too, so, like, I’ve been through the less favorable reactions. Not quite to that extent, though.”

Patrick’s lips part and he blinks, glancing over Pete in an entirely different way than he had before. “Oh. Okay.”

The following silence, more awkward than the first, eats at Pete as he struggles for something to say. By the time his mind’s shot through several separate conversation topics, Patrick’s already working on another apple. His humming is back, though, and Pete allows the sound to put him at ease. He also allows himself to appreciate Patrick’s looks now that he’s decided he might be able to forgive the guy for teaching his son to bribe the class. Maybe he just wanted his son to get in good with the teachers and staff since the principal hates his father. Pete could understand that— not that motives for corrupt crimes should ever be understood.

Still, the way Patrick catches him staring and smiles slightly make him a bit more willing to be open-minded.

“Ow,” Patrick says suddenly, tearing Pete from his thoughts. He watches as Patrick brings the tip of his finger into his mouth, wincing when he realizes too late that he shouldn’t. He looks at Pete, eyes apologetic as he explains himself with words distorted by the finger in his mouth. “The caramel’s hot.”

Okay.

Patrick, the guy that Pete’s been checking out since he arrived, is looking at him with wide eyes and pink cheeks. Patrick, the most attractive guy Pete’s probably ever seen, is smiling shyly about the fact that the caramel is so hot.

And, to top it all off, his lips are wrapped around his finger. _Come on._

Not for the first time— but definitely the worst time— Pete’s mouth runs off with a mind of his own.

“Yeah,” he says. “So are you.”

The effect is instantaneous.

Patrick’s eyes widen and his finger falls from his mouth as his jaw drops. His cheeks blend from a rosy pink to a flaming red, crawling down his neck as he stutters for a response. Most importantly, though, he drops the spoon he’d been holding in his other hand, successfully spreading melted caramel all across his cardigan.

“Oh no, oh _crap_ , I, I just, _crap_.”

Patrick’s frantic voice breaks Pete free from the shocked state he had put himself into after those words had left his lips. Taking in the scene before him— Patrick bouncing around as he tries to wipe off the caramel, wincing each time he’s reminded just how hot it is— Pete springs into action.

“Oh, god, I’m sorry,” Pete says, yanking a decorative towel off a hook and rushing over. “Here, here, you can’t rub it in, you gotta, you gotta, oh Christ, just stand still!”

Patrick freezes and Pete’s forced to take in their positions.

Patrick’s just inches away, eyes wide and face still burning red. Pete has one hand tugging at the hem of the other man’s shirt, the other rubbing furiously with a towel he’s sure isn’t meant for cleaning. Patrick’s hands hover in the air near Pete’s shoulders and chest, twitching with the search for something to do. Pete’s knees brush against Patrick’s legs and their eyes meet— really meet— for the first time.

The fluorescent lights of the school kitchen do the magnificent blues and yellows and greens in Patrick’s eyes no justice, merely displaying them when they deserve to be shown off. Pete can already imagine the way the sun would light them up, exposing a dozen other colors no one knows the name of. His own brown eyes feel weak in comparison but only for a second. Only long enough for him to notice that Patrick’s looking into his eyes with the same emotions that Pete’s feeling in this moment.

“I… Sorry,” Pete says. He still doesn’t move away.

Patrick blinks, long golden eyelashes fluttering against soft pale skin. “It’s fine.”

Silence. It’s not angry; it’s not awkward.

It’s… nice.

“You know, um, I… I’d like to make it up to you and your son about the election thing. Declan and I are making cookies tomorrow if you guys want to come over? He doesn’t… He doesn’t have a lot of friends to invite so I think… I think it’d be nice,” Patrick says, stumbling over his words but never once losing the intensity in his gaze. It’s enough that Pete tries to step away.

Tries.

“Oh,” he says, looking down at where the caramel’s solidified, gluing his sleeve to Patrick’s shirt. He laughs, his smile growing when Patrick does the same. “I think the caramel’s made that decision for me.”

“Well, you know what I said earlier,” Patrick states, reaching and helping Pete to free his arm, unaware of the electric sparks Pete feels each time their hands brush against each other. He just smiles, as bright as he had when they first met. “Caramel’s always right.”

This time, Pete finds no reason to disagree.

 


	7. Fire Pit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You light the spark in my bonfire heart..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Lyrics in summary from Bonfire Heart by James Blunt
> 
> Anywho, this one's... different. I wouldn't quite consider it fluff (though, as I've said time and time again, I'm not sure what constitutes as fluff) and there's very little plot. I wanted to do something other than, you know, a short snippet of a scene and the prompt I was on was "fire pit" so I took an idea and ran with it. It ran a bit off course (in terms of era and actual plot) but I feel like it's honestly exactly the kind of writing I've come to expect from myself: long-winded and pretentious. 
> 
> Also, speaking of eras, have another one where I pretend to know a thing about anything that happened before 2005 (not that I know nothing just... I don't know much. Like, I spent about a half-hour today just reading through the take this to your grave Wikipedia page and the like)
> 
> (I'll also admit that this isn't remotely Halloween or October based but maybe we can pretend it has a fall vibe to it)
> 
> Regardless of all of the above, enjoy!

_ Brilliant? _

_ No. That one’s too obvious. _

_ How about blazing? _

_ Nah, it’s too underwhelming. _

_ Illuminating?  _

_ No. _

_ Searing? _

_ No. _

_ Scorching everything in its path without regard for what lies ahead, never thinking about the next few feet of ground let alone the next second of its life; focused on growing and enlarging and consuming until it’s either dead or— _

Patrick jolts out of his thoughts, unaware they’d been running on for so long. His eyes sting from the heat of the flames he’d been leaning towards, the fire pit still burning just as brightly as it had when he first arrived at the ‘event’. ‘Event’ not ‘party’ because Pete knew if he’d said ‘party’ then Patrick would never show up.

Patrick huffs a breath and shifts around on the cheap camping chairs Pete had set out around the bonfire in his backyard. Well. His  _ parents’  _ backyard. Pete’s been staying here until the band could go looking for an apartment next week. Typically, Patrick would expect for someone of Pete’s age to be a bit embarrassed at having to throw an ‘event’ at his parents’ house but the Wentz family is out of town and, Patrick reminds himself, this is  _ Pete _ . Patrick’s not certain that embarrassment or shame are words he’s familiar with.

_ Gleaming, glowing, flaming, charring _

Patrick’s thoughts spiral back into the trouble they’d been in before. A trouble based entirely on Pete Wentz.

His eyes follow the tips of the flames, lingering on their dancing figures, and watches Pete behind them. The orange tendrils flicker before Patrick's vision, hiding Pete one second and revealing him the next. He’s on the other side of the yard, by the back door as he teases Joe and a few other high school kids about their songwriting skills. One of the many drummers he’d invited— one Patrick identifies as the one introduced as “Hurley” and “fucking awesome” — tosses his keys from hand to hand as he waits with an amused smile to get past them and back inside. If it were any other crowd, Patrick imagines his eyes would get caught on the way the keys bounce back and forth in a confused rhythm, testing his patience with a lack of beat. He imagines he’d be grumbling to himself about Joe leaving him alone by the fire to go try and act cool in front of other musicians. He imagines he’d already be thinking up excuses to leave.

But Pete’s standing amongst that crowd and Patrick’s drawn to the rhythms of his hand tapping against the doorframe, drawn to his  _ glowingburningscorching  _ smile like a flame brought to life in a forest. Patrick’s swallowing nervously each time Pete glimpses over, the crackling embers drowning out any words he could call out to the younger boy. Though Patrick can’t hear what he says, his mouth goes dry and he does his best to blame it on the hot air around the fire pit. 

In any other situation, Patrick would be trying to go home. But, here? Sitting abandoned by a growing fire as Pete merely exists in his presence… Patrick’s only trying to form his emotions into words.

He’s not a writer. He’s not someone who can put together lyrics that write an entire song just by appearing on a page. He’s not as witty as Pete is, not as capable of grasping his wayward thoughts and forcing them into something worth speaking. Oh, sure, he knows all about cadence and alliteration, can make any phrase sound good in a song, but he doesn’t know how to make that phrase appear in the first place. He doesn’t understand how it’s so easy for people— how it’s so easy for  _ Pete _ — to throw all his feelings onto a paper with the ease of solving an elementary school equation. He doesn’t understand.

But he thinks he wants to.

A piece of wood in the fire falls apart, casting sparks into the air like fireflies. Patrick’s eyes drop and he watches them float into the brisk night air before fading into barely visible specks. They turn to ash and land on his jeans. He thinks nothing of it as he flicks them away.

_ Fleeting. Fading. Too far; too close…  _

_ Tangible _

With a sigh, Patrick leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands as he takes the fire into further consideration. It’s what he’s been doing this entire time, aside from the first half-hour when Pete had tossed his arm over his shoulder and introduced him to every person to arrive— even the people Patrick’s already met. He’d had to forcibly remove himself from Pete’s grasp before the redness in his cheeks became too evident.

_ Tangible _

Pete is far too much like this fire, Patrick thinks, eyes flicking up to glance at the other boy before coming down to recapture the image of the flames. He’s entrancing with every movement; he’s eye-catching by appearing in a room. His presence is so obvious that you don’t have to see him to know he’s there. Like the sweltering heat of a fire let loose, he has an aura that demands attention without even knowing that it’s doing so.

And, Patrick adds as he holds a hand close to the fire, close enough for the flames to press against the skin if the wind were to start up again, fire isn’t impossible to get close to. It’s threatening and it’s terrifying but, in the end, a man willing to be consumed will be consumed. Isn’t that what Patrick’s giving into each time he glances  at Pete a second too long? Isn’t he risking his  _ safetysecuritymind _ **_heart_ ** in this attempt to appreciate the flames? He understands the answer but he’s never admitted it. It’s easier to bask in the warmth of a fire than it is to confess that there’s a chance that he’ll be burned.

But he’ll only be burned if he gets too close. Patrick pulls his hand back, tucks it back beneath his chin and shuts his eyes. He won’t be burned if he doesn’t touch it; he’ll be safe so long as he remembers what’s off-limits when playing with fire. He can watch the way it interacts with what it destroys; he can stand by it as it burns everything in its path and he can stoke the flames to help it blaze brighter than ever. Yes, he still has options of what he can do so long as he remembers  _ not to touch _ .

In the distance, Patrick hears Hurley finally make it inside, Joe following with pleas for the drummer to fill in on their next album. Patrick shudders at the reminder of his new role as a singer but it doesn’t last long. The fire fights hard to put him at ease.

He doesn’t think too long about the comparison to be made there.

Instead, he shifts his mind to words like  _ enticing  _ and  _ captivating _ . Anyone who’s seen Pete knows he’s attractive. But not in the conventional way of fitting a model such as  _ brooding  _ or  _ charming _ . Just like fire can never be anything other than what it is, Pete’s his own category. He’s no one else and everyone else all at once. His smile flashes like a flame; his eyes light up with a hot whiskey shade. No one else wears such brilliance as naturally as Pete.

But that’s part of what makes fire so dangerous— there’s a part in it that appeals to everyone. The warmth, the look, the thrill… No one is safe from what fire has to offer. Everyone sees a piece of themselves in it or, like Patrick, they see a way to find the fire in their own being. Being close to this fire pit— being close to  _ Pete  _ in any sense— lights a spark of desire that Patrick’s never felt before. He knows that they could match together, that the flames were made for him to enjoy. He knows that the fire wants to be as close to him as he wants to be to it and, if he were to take that step closer, he’d be devoured whole. In an instinctual and primal way, he knows.

He knows.

But the fire doesn’t.

When it’s lived its whole life shining as brightly as these sparks have, it becomes unaware of the effect it’s heat can have on people. When it’s so used to being fed and praised for its flickering lights, it forgets about its destructive tendency. It forgets and the only way it can ever remember is by witnessing it once again. 

_ Blistering. Scorching. Overwhelming. Hungry _

Toss in a piece of firewood and the flames grow into something eager to destroy what it’s been fed, welcoming the victim with an all-encompassing effect, flames licking along the sides and tearing into it without grasping that there will nothing more than ash left in the next few moments.

Once this happens— and this is what Patrick considers most important— the fire has nothing left to burn. It has nothing to cast its _hungerthirstdesire **lust**  _on, nothing left to keep it going.

And this is when the inferno turns on itself.

Forget the path it was blazing through, the fire will be set loose and forced to find anything to satisfy it. Homes, families, people, loved ones….It will burn it all or die trying.

This is what Patrick considers most important; this is what Patrick considers most frightening.

Burn it all.

Die trying.

No, that’s not quite right, he decides, for— once the fire has destroyed all in its path— it will die all the same. 

Patrick can’t risk himself. Not when he knows that it’s also risking Pete.

So. 

Maybe he’s not a writer.

Maybe he can’t form the lyrics Pete can; maybe he’s only good for the melodies of what Pete writes. 

None of it matters.

Patrick lets his eyes find Pete's once more. It’s not hard; he burns brighter than everyone else.

If he can’t find the words to describe how he feels, he has a valid excuse.

The page was burnt before he had a chance to read it aloud. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, post-editing, I actually really like how this turned out. I was aiming for that introspective inner monologue (I'm sure there's a name for it somewhere) and I think I at least got close to it. I mean, this was almost a song-fic but then I switched to this halfway through and completely rewrote the first half in the editing stage so... I think it was pulled off well, haha.
> 
> But who cares what I think. I love love love getting comments and feedback from you, no matter what you have to say. It never fails to make my day so, please, be sure to leave one on the way out! Even if it's just a :) or a :(, I love seeing something in my inbox. :) Have a great day/night!


	8. Hay Ride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sort of a hayride adventure?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cut me some slack there's only so much you can do with a hayride, prompt okay?? 
> 
> Haha, ok but seriously. I'm sure there was a more prompt focused plot with tons of fluff and scenes sweet enough to make you gag somewhere in here. But then my sleep-deprived self (so many midterms, guys, it's ridiculous) got ahold of it and sort of kind of totally re-routed the entire thing. I'm sorry.
> 
> I also hope you enjoy it either way! :)

The last thing Pete wants to be doing after school on Friday is the early evening shift at “Keller’s Family Fun Farm”. Riding his bike the few miles to the farm each week with a locker’s worth of high school textbooks in his bag isn’t how he imagined his senior year would be spent. He’d pictured parties and slacking off and roaming the halls like he owned them because, after three years of hell, the school owed him a break.

His mother, however, had politely disagreed with the sentiment and handed him a flyer for a part-time job at the farm with a not-so-polite request for Pete to apply.

“It’ll be good experience before you go into the real world,” she had said that fateful August morning as Pete gaped at her over his soggy Cheerios. “You’ll get to work outside, learn about the machinery, who knows. You might even get to supervise some of the animals!”

Well. 

It’s October. It’s cold and the only machine he’s dealt with in the past two and a half months is the truck used for the hayrides. 

“Alright, people! That’s the end of our little adventure! I hope you enjoyed Keller’s special hayride and all the seasonal sights we passed. Don’t forget to grab some of our veggies on the way out!” Pete exclaims with a fake smile, clapping his hands together as little kids rush down the steps before he has the chance to list off the safest way to exit the truck. “Now, some of our other attractions include the corn maze and pumpkin picking on the other side of the farm. And if you head down by the entrance, you’ll spot our petting zoo. Check it out, we have some of the cutest sheep in town.”

Pete has no idea if that’s true. Despite his mother’s excitement over it, he hasn’t been allowed anywhere near the farm animals. If he hadn’t hated the place the second he saw the uniform— seriously, who chooses a white button-up shirt for a  _ farm _ ? — the rules against employee and animal interaction sealed the deal.

Pete shakes his head, yanking the brim of the white “Keller’s Farm” hat further down his face to protect it from the dirt blowing around. He jumps down from the truck once everyone’s off, catching sight of Joe stepping inside the small office building. He grins, heading over to greet his fellow employee— another sucker caught in the trap of well-meaning parents.

“You done for the night?” Joe asks upon seeing him, struggling to keep his own hat on top of his mess of hair. Pete nods, stepping around him to clock out.

“The next ride should be in a few minutes, though people are already lining up last I saw. You good to take over?” He asks once the relief of officially being done for the night sets in. Joe nods, looking outside to watch other employees restack the hay that some teens had pushed over in their very public display of affection. Pete grimaces at the memory.

“I assume you’re heading home, then?” Joe asks, a weary tone in his voice despite the fact that his shift’s only begun. Pete relates to it far more than he would like to.

“Dude, of course,” he says. “You’d have to pay to get me to stay a second longer. Which, I guess, they do.”

Joe laughs weakly at Pete’s joke attempt before turning towards the window to face the growing line. His shoulder slump and he glances over at Pete helplessly. Pete can only shrug, a smug smile on his face. He moves next to Joe, a mean remark about enjoying his shift on his tongue. 

It fades the second he sees _ him _ .

A dark green jacket hugs his body; a cap, not unlike the one the employees wear, hides his face. Red-gold hair shows off to the descending rays of the evening sun and rounded cheeks bloom pink as the wind brushes against them the way Pete… The way a lover would. Small, shoulders hunch forward, trying to hide from either the cold or prying eyes. But he can’t hide from Pete. He never could.

“I’ll hang around for one ride,” Pete says, eyes still on the boy outside the window. “Just to, you know. Be nice. Keep you company or whatever.”

Joe says something with a laugh. Pete doesn’t hear it.

He follows Joe to the hayride, only half-listening to the other boy ramble about one of his classes. He feels guilty for tuning him out but, as the wind strokes through strands of hair that Pete once knew so well, he can’t find it in him to hold onto the guilt for very long.

No one questions the way Pete climbs onto the back of the truck with Joe, his uniform still displaying him as a working employee to the people huddled in line. Parents and children and teenage couples look up at him and await instructions. Just like with Joe, he shamelessly ignores them, eyes focused on the boy who still hasn’t noticed him yet. The boy toying with his phone with something like dejection in the way he types a text into it. The boy whose face is hidden by the broad brim of his hat. The boy who nods along to Joe’s rules, even though Pete knows he’s not listening.

The boy that Pete thought he loved, thought loved him.

The boy who stole his heart when they first met in freshman year and refused to give it back.

The boy who traded his first kiss for Pete’s in the empty hallways of their school as everyone else watched a pep rally during sophomore year.

The boy who shook as Pete asked him to homecoming in front of the entire junior class. The boy who said yes.

The boy who did the same thing months later to Pete but with a sign that declared “Prom?” instead.

The boy Pete loved; the boy who loved Pete.

The boy Pete lost; the boy who left Pete.

Patrick.

Pete watches, his breath trapped in his lungs, as Patrick stumbles onto the truck with everyone else. He’s alone, no one to help him up and no one to notice how cold he is. Pete’s hand twitches with the instinctive need to offer his help but Joe beats him to it. But Joe doesn't know Patrick broke his wrist while racing Pete back home in their junior year. He doesn’t know they waited too long to tell his parents, doesn’t see the way Patrick flinches because it still aches sometimes. Pete sees it, though, and he can't look away. Patrick, his Patrick, hasn’t disappeared completely. 

The moment Patrick sits down, Pete claims the spot next to him with hands trembling as much as his will to speak. Conversation starters race through his mind but none as prevalent as the questions he’s had since Patrick left. 

Junior year had ended; they’d made plans to spend the summer together and to last through the senior year, making it to college as the school's most successful couple. It seemed unlikely and no one hesitated to comment that high school sweethearts are nothing more than fairy tales.

Pete's mind aches with confusion he thought he abandoned long ago.

Why hadn’t Patrick followed through on the promise of a happy ending like they swore they would?

Why not tell Pete that his mom was making him move across the city, making him switch schools? Why not tell him the reason?

Why fill the space between them with silence and nothingness? Why ignore his calls and texts and emails? Why disappear?

Why leave?

Patrick’s eyes focus on Joe as the other rambles about the safety guidelines. Bright blue with a ring of gold in the center, they’re as lovely as the first time Pete saw them.

“You don’t need to worry about listening,” he says, going with the first thought in his mind and spitting it out before fear chokes him. “I know all the rules and I’ll let you know if you’re breaking any.”

Pete had hoped for Patrick to recognize him by his voice but hours of shouting about the farm attractions and telling children to sit back down on the hay have left his voice a bit hoarse. It’s not until Patrick turns that Pete's rewarded for his courage. It starts with the way Patrick's jaw drops, followed by the sharp intake of breath and the subtle tensing of his muscles. He pulls back a centimeter, eyes widening and cheeks blooming a bright red. Only one word escapes his lips: “Pete?”

It happens in less than a second. 

Pete laughs because it’s the only thing he can do, the only way to cope with how Patrick doesn’t seem as overjoyed to see him as he’d thought he might be. Of course, it was a stupid expectation. Patrick left, didn’t he? Why would he be happy to see someone he left behind?

“Yeah,” Pete says, trying to avert his gaze but failing. He never could look away from Patrick for long. “It’s been a while.”

“Y-Yeah.” Patrick’s smile is stiff but there’s something warm hidden in the corners, something soft in his voice. “You’ve, um. You’ve… You’ve been well?”

Pete nods even as his hands form fists in his lap. Well? Patrick expects him to be doing well after he’s been abandoned for so long? He swallows every word he'd rather say and reminds himself to be civil, to not scare Patrick away again. “Yeah, you could say that. I got a job so, I mean, I must be doing something right.”

“I can tell.” Patrick giggles, a light sound. “There aren’t usually two tour guides for the hay ride, though. Are you slacking off or just wasting company hours?”

Pete lets his gaze flick towards Joe as he answers a concerned woman’s question about why there are no seatbelts or similar safety restraints for her children. Pete rolls his eyes. “

Trust me," he says. "Only a few people waste time here and it’s rarely the employees.”

“Don’t say that so loudly,” Patrick says even as a smile tugs at his lips. It’s more genuine than it was before and something about the way his eyes crinkle puts Pete’s mind at ease. 

“I’m only speaking the truth, Trickster.” Pete doesn’t miss the way Patrick’s smile wavers at the nickname and he curses internally, rushing to move the conversation along. “Anyway, you know my excuse for being here. What’s yours?”

Wrong thing to say. Pete’s smile falls a second after Patrick’s does. Patrick looks away, scratching at his jeans and bouncing his leg.

“It was… Nothing important, you know, just. Not like. I don’t know, I.” He stops, his teeth gritting together as Pete watches him try to form a sentence. A moment passes, long enough for the woman complaining to get back off the truck, a crying baby in her arms. Pete’s about to ask a different question, move on because he feels he knows the answer, when Patrick finally speaks. “I was supposed to… to meet someone here. A guy. He stood me up and I didn’t want to go home yet. My siblings would know that I what happened if I went back early and. Well. You know how they are.”

Jealousy and anger rage in Pete’s gut at Patrick’s words.

Was he meeting with someone else on a date?  _ How dare he _ .  

And his supposed date stood him up? Left Patrick alone? Made him look and feel like a fool?  _ How fucking dare he, that son of a—  _

Pete pushes away from the emotions, reminding himself to answer Patrick’s words. “Yeah, your brother was a jerk.”

Patrick scoffs. “He still is.”

Past tense. Present tense. Pete hates how out of sync they’ve become.

Joe’s voice— filled with false excitement and hiding layers of boredom— cuts through the air before Pete can do something stupid like speak his mind. 

“Hold on, folks!” He shouts. “The ride’s about to start! It can be a bit jerky but, despite what some parents may believe, our hay ride is one hundred percent safe. So ignore the bumps and pay attention to the wonderful sights you’ll see. I’m your guide, Joe. Feel free to ask any questions along the way.”

By the time he’s done speaking, his voice leaves no room for questions and Pete allows himself a laugh as the truck suddenly starts, a chorus of “oh!” filling the back cart as the tires bounce over a small mound of dirt. Patrick’s no exception, his rosy lips forming a perfect O of surprise. He launches a few inches into the air, the consequence of sitting on the one bundle of hay right over the back tire. Just as easily, though, that shocked expression fades into a warm smile as the truck picks up speed and they head into the vegetable patch.

Pete’s silent, allowing Joe to describe farming tactics and tips on picking the best onions. It’d give him a headache, hearing the words he’d been shouting for hours during his shift, if Patrick wasn't sitting right next to him, the smallest smile on his face as his eyes flick around the farm.

“Oh, look! The corn maze is over there, it looks so much smaller from this angle,” Patrick says, nearly giving Pete a heart attack as he leans over the railing to point. Like a concerned parent, Pete reaches out and grabs onto Patrick’s waist, yanking him back into his seat as the truck goes over another bump.

“Careful, Trickster,” Pete says, the old nickname slipping off his tongue without a thought. “We wouldn’t want to lose you to the onions.”

“O-oh,” Patrick says, blushing but smiling all the same. He yanks at the brim of his hat, more a nervous habit than any attempt at hiding. “Sorry, I— I just get really excited over Fall and October. It’s really cool that there’s so much stuff leading up to Halloween. Sorry, I know it’s kinda lame.”

“What? You know I don’t think it’s lame!” Is Patrick forgetting each time they carved pumpkins together or discussed couple costumes cute enough to make the rest of the school gag? Did he really let go of all their memories so fast? Pete spits out meaningless words, casual conversation, as if he could ever free up the tight feeling rolling around in his chest. “I love Halloween probably more than anyone.”

Patrick grins at him and looks away, taking in the sight of families picking their own vegetables and children running around on the dirt. He laughs, a fraction louder than the wind, and Pete’s heart swells.

All is silent between them, Joe’s tour guide monologue filling the air. Pete keeps his eyes on Patrick, though, not caring for the rehearsed spiel. Why waste time on something like that when Patrick is sitting so close to him? He didn’t understand how little time he had when they were together. He doesn’t plan on wasting any of the time he’s been granted now.

Patrick looks like he was made for the fall, for the golden colored skies and the light brush of wind across his pale skin. The pale orange shades of the sun rest against his red-brown hair, painting it in ways Pete would have thought impossible had he never met Patrick. Patrick’s cheeks spot red from the biting cold they’ve both become numb to, the tip of his nose and ears wearing the same pinkish hue. His fingers dance across his lap like falling leaves; his smile is like all the excitement of Halloween hidden within a candy wrapper. 

Pete’s heart skips a beat. It's the first time in a while.

They’re passing the kid’s play area, Halloween decorations set up around the playground and a fake cemetery displayed nearby. Children peer over the gate keeping them away from the decorations— a gate Pete had begged his boss to let him set up because children have no sense of respect. Patrick’s eyes dart over to the tombstones and Pete prays Patrick doesn’t recognize the handwriting on the one labeled  _ My Love Life.  _

“You know why there’s a fence around the graveyard, kiddos?” Joe asks, eyeing the young children staring wide-eyed at the spooky decorations around them. He waits for a beat, exclaiming the answer in a sudden burst. “Because everyone’s dying to get in!”

The crowd of people bursts into laughter. Patrick, Pete notes with a laugh of his own, is no exception.

“I’m sure he’s a real class clown, huh?” Patrick asks, looking over at Pete with a smile still on his face. Small chuckles escape between a few words, an overreaction to the overdone joke. Pete doesn’t have the heart to tell him it's just another part of the script all employees get.

“I wouldn’t know,” Pete says. “He doesn’t go to our school.”

Patrick’s smile flinches— a flash of discomfort that only someone who  _ knows _ him would see— and it takes Pete all of two seconds to understand why.

“Oh, fu— crap,” he says, trying— and failing— to censor himself for the nearby children. “My school. Uh, er, you know, the high school. Not, like, our… Shoot. I didn’t mean to, like, bring that sort of stuff up.”

Patrick waves it off, eyes focused on a spot just over Pete's shoulder. “It’s fine, don’t apolg— Oh!”

Another jolt of the cart; another launch into the air. Patrick’s body falls forward, his face against Pete’s shoulder and Pete’s arms around his torso to keep him from tumbling off the cart entirely. It’s an absurd fear— Patrick had been tossed to the side, not the back— but Pete’s heart still races. In the months he’s been here, he’s seen his fair share of accidents. It’s not a pretty sight.

The actions and accompanying silence are nice, both their breaths steadying and matching a rhythm Pete had thought died months ago. It doesn’t become awkward, doesn’t lose its comfort, until Patrick tries to shift away. His body— familiar and soft and so undeniably  _ Patrick _ — presses back against Pete’s hands. Pete’s mind rushes to catch up with how he has Patrick in his arms, how he has Patrick so close— close enough to feel his breath against his skin. Pete’s mouth goes dry; his mind goes blank. Patrick makes an uncomfortable sound.

Pete forces himself to let go, each muscle unlocking one at a time. His cheeks flare up with embarrassment and a longing he refuses to recognize as he looks away from Patrick for the first time this night. He expects for Patrick to say something, anything. Is he upset that Pete grabbed him without any sort of warning? Is he, too, embarrassed to be caught in the arms of his… are they ex-boyfriends? Pete’s hands form fists at the thought. If they are, he never got the memo. Of course, the silence should have made it obvious.

Perhaps Patrick won’t say anything. Perhaps he’ll just stand up and find another seat. Move away and expect Pete to figure out why. He’s better at that than either of them probably imagined.

When none occur, when Patrick remains still and silent beside him, Pete glances over.

Patrick’s face is as red as Pete's feels, his eyes watching his hands as they fiddle with the hem of his shirt. He licks his lips and his shoulders tense, a sign he knows Pete’s watching him. When he takes a breath, Pete holds his own and prepares for whatever Patrick plans on saying.

“I probably owe you an explanation for disappearing without a word, huh?” Patrick asks. Pete doesn’t respond. Just like Patrick’s, his silence speaks volumes. Another pause takes the space between them, a bubble keeping Pete from bursting the moment with words he won’t think through.

“Look, I need you to know… It wasn’t— Like, it wasn’t anything dramatic, okay? I know that rumors probably popped up but it wasn’t like anyone was diagnosed with a terminal disease or my mom hated you. I just.” Patrick stops, lifting his hat and running his hand through his hair as he thinks. “She got a job offer. My mom, that is. A few towns over. We moved so we could be closer. She couldn’t just say no and I didn’t want her to… Not when she’s the only taking care of the family right now. And, I mean, it’s not like I went out of my way to ignore you. Things got busy pretty fast, you know? I got a job at a convenience store right away so she wouldn’t have to worry about buying me things and then school started and I was trying to make friends and catch up with the curriculum and—”

Another pause. Another bubble. Patrick starts picking at his nails; Pete watches the action with too much interest.

“By the time I had the chance to call you back or send a text… It’d been too long. I thought it’d be easy for you to forget about me or hate me for never reaching out. I didn’t know how I’d take it if I found out you’d moved on, if I called and another guy answered.” Patrick sighs, long and loud enough to draw the curious attention of a teenage girl seated across from them. She raises an eyebrow in a judgemental arch, her eyes flicking back and forth between the two boys. A stern glance from Pete, though— still in his employee’s clothes— has her looking back at Joe. Patrick doesn’t notice the exchange, too focused in how he can’t stop fidgeting. “I felt guilty about it everyday. You have no idea how many nights I just hated that I never had the bravery to find out for myself if you still wanted a call from me. But it was easy to convince myself you didn’t. It… I don’t know… It made sense, I guess.”

Pete clenches his teeth together before the shouts building in his chest can escape.

Made sense? How could it possibly make sense that Pete would go about his life without wondering why Patrick left? How could it seem at all logical that he’d forget about his golden boy— his Patrick, his heart, his  _ everything _ — after a few months? How is it right? How is it easy? How is it  _ fair? _

Did Patrick really think so little of him?

Pete doesn’t dare find out the answer. Instead, he does what he does best: chooses a safer subject.

“How’s school going?” Not enough time has passed and the shift hardly seems natural. Patrick’s eyes narrow and his lips part in the way he always did when debating whether or not to pick a fight. Pete knows he wants to chase after Pete’s thoughts— his hate, his forgiveness, either one works— but the truck begins to turn around. Joe announces that they’re headed back. And, maybe, like Pete, he realizes he shouldn’t waste his time.

“I got stood up on a date to a kid’s farm,” Patrick says, facing forward with a scoff. “How do you think it’s going?” 

Pete can’t help the laugh that escapes him, blames it on Patrick’s pouty tone and not on his need to hide the way he feels at the mention of Patrick’s date. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, surprised he means it. “About the laughing and the, er, date. But that guy was a dick for leaving you. You deserve better.”

_ We deserved better _

Patrick shrugs, the unspoken words hanging in the air like needles poised to pop the bubbles Pete’s been imagining between them. 

“It’s fine,” he says, his eyes averted and filled with a hesitance Pete hasn't seen in years. “It’s bad but… I didn’t even really like him. I’m still hung up on this other guy. Was trying to get over him but I don’t that’s possible at this point.”

“Oh?”

Pete doesn’t dare let himself hope, not after months of silence and heartache. If Patrick means what he’s saying, if he ever meant what he said, they wouldn’t be in this mess of trying to find their footing around each other. They wouldn't be so uncomfortable, so wary with their words. They'd be together. They'd be happy. They'd be perfect.

Pete doesn’t dare let himself hope. But then Patrick looks into his eyes— persistent blue on stubborn brown— and Pete gives in. Just like he always has.

_ Oh _

“I’m, um, sorry. I guess that was a bit out of place to say. You probably don’t want to hear that from me. Not after how long it’s been…” Patrick mutters, kicking at the loose hay beneath his feet when Pete takes too long to respond.

“No, it’s fine. I just… I didn’t think you’d still… You know. After leaving and everything.” Pete’s voice is small, his words are hardly eloquent. “Not that it was your fault, obviously. I just. I understand. The being hung up on a guy. There’s this guy I like, too. And I don’t think I ever want to get over him, no matter how hard he tried to ignore me.”

Something about how they’re surrounded but disregarded makes the moment more intimate as Pete leans in towards Patrick, his mind consumed by the way Patrick’s leaning forward, too. He reaches out, a hand finding Patrick’s and squeezing tight, his eyes falling shut and his heart pounding just like it did that first time…

So close… Just a few inches more…

Pete can barely breathe, can barely believe that this is happening…

Patrick…

Patrick…

Patrick… 

_ Thunk _

The truck jerks to a stop, causing a collision between Pete and Patrick's heads rather than their lips. Pete pulls back and Patrick does the same, each boy rubbing their foreheads with pained expressions.

“ _ Why  _ is your head so hard?” Pete whines while Patrick curses colorfully about the bruise he’ll be sporting. A woman getting off the truck glares, covering her daughter’s ears as they pass by. Patrick merely curses again.

“Patrick, Patrick, stop swearing,” Pete says, giggles interrupting his words. “They're gonna tell my boss and you’re gonna get me fired. They know I work here. They can see the outfit, you dork.”

“Oh, fuck, that's the uniform?” Patrick asks, finally taking in Pete’s outfit. He stares at the hat with narrowed eyes, though the stern line he attempts to form with his mouth keeps slipping into an amused grin. “And here I thought you were copying my style.”

Pete laughs, a full-body explosion of complete relief and joy at the ease in Patrick’s voice. Patrick curses a bit more, his hat having fallen off in the collision, and Pete’s happier than he expected he would be when he clocked in this afternoon.

“Hey,” Pete says once Patrick’s placed his hat back on his head. Pete stares at the hay peeking out from underneath, trapped with his hair, but says nothing about it. “The, um, the farm’s open for a few more hours. We can hang out for a bit. If you, you know, want to really convince your siblings you went on a date.”

Patrick smiles, pushing himself to his feet and extending his hand out towards the other boy. 

“I think I’d like that,” he says. “You wanna go see the petting zoo? I hear they have the cutest sheep in town.” 

Pete places his hand in Patrick’s, the warmth he finds there enough to untie any knots that had formed between his lungs. Sure, a few linger, a few sting when he thinks of how long it’s been since he’s seen Patrick’s bright blue eyes, but he can push those away for tonight. 

The silence between them as they rush past Joe and off the truck promises they’ll have all the time in the world to talk about it later. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I know I've been sort of neglecting other works of mine and you have no idea how sorry I am for that. Trust me, no one yells at me about it more than myself, haha. Anyway, I just wanted to leave a note down here to tell you that once midterms are done, I should be able to balance a bit more bandom related stuff. So hang on tight, I swear it's coming!!
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed this update and are still looking forward to those yet to come! The month's almost up and I still have a ton to go so expect some sort of spam in upcoming days, haha. Have a nice day/night!


	9. Costume Ball

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Dude, just dance with me"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm, like, only a third of the way through how many of these I need to get done and the end of the month is less than a week away oh god what I have done. 
> 
> This is fine. I'll get it done. I promise.
> 
> Anyway, not much to say here! I tried to stay more on topic but, as has become a habit, it does stray a tad from the prompt. Which is fine, I think! I mean, the prompt just serves as inspiration, right? Haha, regardless, please enjoy this chapter :)

 

Patrick keeps an eye on the gym floor beneath his feet, arms crossed tightly across his chest, and does his best to pretend the flashing lights and booming music aren’t giving him a headache. The Halloween dance that the high school student council convinced the administration to let them throw was a nice idea but, so far, it’s been nothing but underwhelming. Patrick’s school isn’t necessarily made for things like costume balls. Stuffing all the students into the undersized gym— still smelling of sweat and a weak attempt at floor cleaner— has only caused him to wish he’d stayed home instead.

Well. That and the fact that Derek, his date, had ditched him. 

Patrick leans back against the wall by the punch bowl and snack bar, trying to find the blond-haired jock he’d come with. Derek had seemed nice when he asked Patrick to the dance a few days prior, nice enough that Patrick had gushed all about him to his mom after saying yes. He’s in some of Patrick’s classes and in his junior year as well, a JV soccer player with an interest in science. Truthfully, Patrick didn’t know much more about Derek other than the fact that he was the only person to ask Patrick out. Patrick had hoped to learn more about him throughout the night but, well, Derek had other plans.

“You look really nice tonight,” Derek had said halfway through the dance as the song they were dancing to reached its end. Patrick had blushed, looking back down at the sailor’s costume Derek had helped him pick out. Derek dressed as a pirate, claimed that it was almost matching. “Hey, do you mind if I dance with my friend Kaylie for the next slow one?”

For some reason, all Patrick could seem to do was gape at Derek’s words before spitting out some of his own.

“Oh, yeah, sure,” he’d said. “I don’t see why not.”

_ Why did he say yes? Oh my god, take it back, take it back, take it back— _

“Awesome.” Derek had smiled, pulling away from Patrick. “I’ll catch you later then, Pat.”

And then he was gone.

So, here Patrick stands, a half hour later, still waiting for his date to return. He bites his lip and checks the time, noting with despair that the dance is supposed to end soon. Just a few more songs and the teachers will have everyone wrapping up. A knot of anger and humiliation ties itself together in Patrick’s chest but he stamps it down with a heavy sigh. He is  _ not  _ going to be dramatic about this. It’s not like he  _ liked  _ Derek. He just… He just thought it would be nice if he got to spend the night with someone who seemed to like him. 

Patrick scoffs at his own thoughts.  _ Pathetic _ . It was all probably just some stupid dare or joke about asking the loser with, like, two friends to the dance. It’s not like Patrick  _ cares _ or anything. It’s not like he should have expected any better. When is he ever so lucky? He glares at the crowd of people dancing and pretending like wearing a silly costume suddenly makes the night so much more magical. Idiots. They’re all idiots.

Of course, a meaner piece of Patrick’s mind points out, he’s the one standing in the corner with a sailor’s vest and boots on. He catches sight of the other students glancing at him the way one would watch the kid picked last for a dodgeball team. Pitying. Amused. Smiling in relief because it isn’t them. 

Patrick shifts his weight once more, swallowing thickly. He’s not emotional over this, god _ damnit _ ! He’s fine with it. Derek has to drive him back home anyway and Patrick plans on giving him a piece of his mind on the way there. 

The song playing— something poppy that has everyone doing the same dance moves on the chorus— comes to a close and Patrick finally catches sight of his Derek from across the room, another boy dressed as a pirate at his side. Patrick waves, hoping to catch his attention and demand what the hell is going on. 

“Derek!” He shouts out, hurrying towards the blond and ignoring the kids giving him strange looks. “Derek, you ass, get over here and— oh!”

Patrick’s shouting cuts off as he collides into somebody. He stumbles back, unaware that he’d been moving fast enough to cause that kind of impact. The person he ran into does the same, stepping away but reaching their hands out to keep Patrick from falling over.

“Woah, woah, woah. You alright there? Sorry, I didn’t see you running this way,” the stranger says. He’s quite handsome, Patrick thinks as he regains his footing. He’s not the conventional attractive of Derek but more of the opposite with hair as dark as the shadows around them and eyes as warm as the hot chocolate being served by the punch. He’s dressed up more intricately than some of the other students, a wide Cheshire cat grin painted on his face and a spiked black cloak over his shoulders. It takes Patrick an embarrassingly long time to turn away in an attempt to find his actual date.

“Alright,” the DJ announces. “We got one more slow song for you guys so grab your special someone and end this night on a good note!”

Derek finally—  _ finally _ — looks at Patrick and, for a moment, Patrick imagines that everything will be fine. He was overreacting earlier, falling into the trap of wanting everything to be perfect. Derek just went to hang out with friends and lost track of time. It’s not like he told Patrick  _ when  _ he was going to be back, right? At least they’ll get the last dance together and figure things out and—

Just as quickly as the eye contact was made, Derek turns around and offers his hand to the other pirate boy, whirling him away into the dance floor without another glance back. Patrick’s jaw drops.

_ That motherfucking dick! _

“Dude, dude,” Cheshire cat guy says, a hand still on Patrick’s shoulder. “You okay? You haven’t responded yet and I really don’t know how to deal with someone in shock.”

Shock. That’ll be a good excuse to use later when this guy asks why on earth Patrick asks what he does.

“Do you have someone to dance with?”

As expected, Cheshire Cat— as Patrick’s taken to calling him, distracted by the double set of teeth that seem to appear when he opens his mouth— blinks in response before answering. “Um, I. No?”

“Good,” Patrick says, yanking Cheshire Cat’s hand off his shoulder and pulling him closer. “Because my fucking date just left to go dance with someone else and it’s the last slow dance and I deserve to spend it with  _ someone _ after the fucking night I’ve had.”

Surprisingly, Cheshire Cat doesn’t pull away or hit him. He nods, albeit with confusion. “Um, alright. Did you… Did you want me to ask you or something?”

“Dude, just dance with me.”

Fitting together isn’t as awkward as Patrick had imagined but it is just as clumsy. Patrick’s hands flail in the air as he realizes he doesn’t know where to place them, bumping into Cheshire Cat’s as they struggle to find out who’s holding where. Patrick feels his face burn red and, for once, he’s grateful for the flashing lights. 

“Here,” Cheshire Cat says eventually. “You can hold onto my shoulders. I got your waist.”

The song’s already a verse in. Patrick has no choice but to agree. 

The other’s hands fit along Patrick’s sides in a way that makes his breathing hitch, a moment of second-guessing because Patrick isn’t typically like this. He doesn’t let people get close enough to touch him, doesn’t ask them to dance or pretend he has a possibility of happiness unless someone gives him a reason to. Derek had done as much for a few days, long enough for Patrick to forget why he doesn’t allow himself crushes or hopes. 

But this stranger with a Cheshire cat grin-- even underneath all the paint-- pulls Patrick onto the dance floor where couples are spinning and smiling like it’s a Valentine’s Day dance rather than a Halloween one. Patrick follows his lead, brown eyes on him with something Patrick can only recognize as intrigue. His stomach twists at the thought.

“My name’s Patrick, by the way,” he says just to say something. “Sorry, I didn’t think about how awkward this would be.”

“Trust me, there’s nothing awkward about giving me the chance to dance with someone like you.” It’s terribly cliche and Patrick hates the way it makes him smile. “I’m Pete.”

Pete. It almost sounds like it should be familiar.

The music, though, begs Patrick to forget meaningless names and rumors he may have heard. The song, a slowed piano rendition of some Nightmare Before Christmas music, is hardly romantic but it does cause Patrick to sway a bit more than he usually would; it calls for him to make up steps as they go, asking him to show off in front of the other couples. Pete follows each move without question, an amused grin beneath the face paint. Patrick expects the rest of the dance to go exactly like that. He’ll lead; he’ll pretend that Pete isn’t just humoring him.

Patrick takes a step towards Pete; this time, Pete steps towards Patrick. 

“Sorry, I didn’t want to crowd the people behind me,” Pete says when Patrick splutters and tries-- tries being the operative word-- to move away. He's too stuck on the way their chests brush together to call him out on the empty space Pete could have moved towards instead. “Is this fine?”

Patrick feels something in Pete’s voice, something he hadn’t felt when Derek asked him to the dance. It’s warm, a hint of something more hidden beneath the words. He shakes his head to clear himself of these stupid and useless thoughts, realizing too late it’s the wrong thing to do.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to—” Pete’s smile falls and a fire in Patrick’s chest demands that he bring it back.

“No, no, not that!” Patrick says, hands tightening on Pete’s shoulders to keep him from moving back. “Sorry, it’s just, um, you know. If you’re holding my waist and I’m holding your shoulders, our arms are gonna be a bit weird if you step closer.”

It’s a lame excuse but, when Pete’s eyes soften with understanding, Patrick's as satisfied as he can be with it.

“That makes sense,” Pete says, easing Patrick’s worry that he’d offended him. 

But then Pete’s hands start moving, one wrapping behind him to press against his back and the other leaving entirely. Patrick's eyes widen as Pete— the bastard smirking like this is supposed to be some sort of  _ fairy tale _ — unwraps one of Patrick’s hands from his shoulder. He clasps their hands together, callouses rubbing against Patrick’s skin as Pete spins them away from the crowd of people and to the edges where they can have space to themselves.

“Is this good?” 

Patrick swallows, searching his mind for an answer. He met Pete by accident, there’s no reason to be so flustered. Patrick doesn’t get flustered. He doesn’t get nervous around cute boys or worry about if they like him and he doesn’t get crushes. Ever. 

Still, he can’t help but smile softly at his feet as Pete holds him close. 

“Y-yeah,” he says. “This is nice.”

“Good. You do deserve to have a nice slow dance, after all,” Pete says, a chuckle following his words. 

Patrick’s brutally reminded of what he’d told Pete, what he’d claimed in order to receive this dance. He hadn’t been lying, hadn’t been trying to get back at Derek when he’d said he deserved to dance with somebody. After being dragged here in a stupid outfit and abandoned for a good portion of the night, some attention and kindness were the least he felt he was owed. If he could get a charming stranger to give him some, what’s the deal?

But Patrick knows that Pete must be pitying him. His mind reminds him of how long he stood alone, back to the wall as he waited for somebody-- anybody-- to whisk him off his feet and make the night worthwhile. If Pete had thought there was anything interesting about him, wouldn’t he have approached him sooner?

And what was it about Pete that made him so damn appealing? The last real crush Patrick had was in freshman year, on a junior name Nicky. He’d gotten one kiss from the boy in exchange for some test answers and never spoke to him again. And it’s not like anyone gets crushes on Patrick. It’s not like Patrick should give into his feelings or acknowledge them because he knows the second he falls into that trap is the moment life will throw out the punch line and he’ll be left again, just like every time before.

Pete asks Patrick a question. It might be about having a date but Patrick doesn’t really hear it. He's too busy trying to find the best way to ignore his own thoughts.

“Patrick, you don’t have to answer. Just dance with me. Whoever your date was is missing out. Look at me, please, so I know you’re not too upset,” Pete says, his grin softening as the lights flicker over his face in extraordinary colors, bringing life to the monster he'd dressed up as. Patrick responds to his request quicker than he means to, looking up with a smile that's only partially forced. Pete squeezes Patrick’s hand in approval, light enough Patrick can almost believe he imagined it. They glide across the floor without conversation, though Patrick hopes Pete’s eyes are saying everything they seem to be. They turn, twisting with the pace and standing closer together than is considered appropriate for a school dance. 

“The song’s almost over,” Patrick says, kicking himself for the disappointment that slips into his tone. “You can go, you know, if you want. I’m sure you have friends or, um, someone else waiting for you. You don’t have to stay any longer.”

Pete doesn’t reply at first, more focused on his attempt to spin Patrick. He lets go of his waist and lifts their hands, smiling at Patrick as the music reaches its end. It’s childish and unlike him but Patrick finds himself giggling as Pete urges him into the move. He’s hardly graceful, twisting his arm and body to make it before the last notes of the song. When he faces Pete again, smiling even as every fiber of his being warns against these feelings, he feels his face go red. 

“Do you want me to go?” Pete asks at last. Patrick hesitates before shaking his head.

“Nah, you’re pretty cool,” he says, playing it safe. Pete swings their hands between them and the song finally reaches its end. 

“Good, I think you’re cool too, Trick.”

“It’s _ Patrick _ . Oh, and that reminds me. Do I know you? Your name sounded kinda familiar when you said it but I can’t tell with all that face paint and—”

“Oh, there you are.” Derek’s voice cuts through Patrick’s like an out of tune piano. “You ready to leave?”

And Patrick remembers why he had to dance with Pete.

“You son of a bitch,” Patrick snaps, turning around and yanking his hand away from Pete. “I may not be ready to leave but you sure as hell were.”

“What?” Derek asks, adjusting his pirate hat. “Dude, chill, I don’t know where that anger’s coming from but—”

“And I don’t know why you thought it’d be alright to leave me alone for, like, half the dance!” Patrick says. “You said you’d be gone for one song! What the hell, Derek? Did you really think I’d be okay with you dancing with basically everybody but your date?”

“Oh my god,” Derek says, rolling his eyes. “I asked you to the dance but it’s not like we’re exclusively dating. I was trying to be nice! My friend said you never get asked out so I figured you’d appreciate it. If this is how you want to thank me then I guess I can see why you’re always so alone.”

“Woah, hey—” Pete tries to cut in. Patrick shouts over him.

“What the  _ fuck _ , Derek? What do you think I am, some fucking charity case for you to brag about to your friends later? What the fuck?” Patrick’s hands shake as he folds them into fists, his teeth clenching together so tightly he wouldn’t be surprised if they shattered. Derek scoffs and Patrick’s a second away from forcing his fist into his face.

“Oh, don’t act like you’re offended,” he says. “From what I can tell, if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have been able to have your Disney princess ballroom moment with Peter Wentz.”

“Screw you, that has absolutely— Wait,  _ Wentz? _ ”

Pete.

Wentz.

Peter Wentz. 

Top of the high school food chain, star of the varsity soccer team, the town’s local heartthrob. Patrick knows the name as well as his own. Peter Wentz, the rumors claim, can win over any heart and break it twice as fast. He can take anyone he wants— and he has. Peter Wentz, Patrick’s heard, is way too cool for someone like him. Of course, Pete’s a senior and Patrick’s never had the chance to see him for himself, though the gossip had spiked his interest on more than one occasion. Rumors spread faster than introductions and Patrick— a wallflower with nothing to do but eavesdrop— has heard them all.

There’s no way that Pete—  _ his  _ Pete, the Pete he told to dance with him, the Pete that  _ did  _ dance with him— is the infamous, heartbreaking, too cool for Patrick to even breathe around Peter Wentz. 

His eyes flick towards Pete. He shrugs and Patrick swears he feels the weight of the punchline dropping onto him like a misstep in a dance. It’s clumsy and it’s uncomfortable but, most of all, it’s humiliating and all his fault.

“Whatever,” Patrick spits out, ducking his head to hide behind the  _ stupidstupidstupid  _ sailor’s hat he was tricked into wearing. It doesn’t even look like a sailor hat, goddammit. It’s nothing more than an over-glorified beanie Derek had tossed him in the car, noting that he knew Patrick liked hats. If Patrick didn’t need it so much right now, he’d toss it in the bastard’s face. “It’s not like it’s a big fucking deal. He’s a student just like everyone else in this damn gym so don’t act like it matters who I dance with when you were the one who tricked me into coming here.”

“Oh my god, are you serious?” Derek’s frustration reaches towards anger and Patrick doesn’t know how long he can hold himself back from attacking the guy. Seriously, what did he do to deserve any of this shit? “You’re right, it doesn’t matter because everyone knows you’re just the loser who can’t get a date to the dance. It’s not going to matter because it doesn’t mean anything! No one who— God, this is so juvenile. No one who  _ dances  _ with you, Cinder-fucking-ella is going to care enough to go looking for you in the morning so just get your things and get in the car so I can drop you off and get this night over with at last!”

Patrick…

Patrick doesn’t do emotions. He doesn’t do crushes or feelings. He doesn’t let people get to him and he doesn’t let them get close enough to try.

And the way that he is now? Biting onto his bottom lip to keep it from shaking, digging his nails into his palms to distract from the knot in his throat? That’s why he doesn’t do any of those things. He can’t. He  _ won’t _ . 

“Oh, fuck you.”

Patrick doesn’t say it; neither does Derek. The two turn to look at Pete— Peter Wentz— glaring at Derek the way one might at a dead fly on the table. Patrick’s sure he should find the makeup on his face silly but, with the dark look in his eyes and the hard set of his jaw, it’s completely terrifying. Especially since he knows who this is.

“Excuse me?” Derek’s eyes narrow but Patrick doesn’t miss the flash of hesitation in them before he steps forward. “I know you aren’t talking to me like that.”

“Well, if you think that then  _ I  _ know you’re an even bigger idiot than I thought,” Pete snaps. He’s shorter than Derek by just a fraction of an inch but something about his voice causes the other boy to reel back. “You wanna come over and act like saying my name is gonna give you some sort of power? You don’t fucking know me and you don’t fucking know Patrick. If you did, you’d hate yourself for saying the things you did.”

Derek scoffs. “Look, man, you don’t need to play the nice guy. I know you just met him tonight.”

“And I already know he’s so much better than you in every single way.” Pete pauses, his eyes darting to Patrick with an unintelligible look. Just as soon, his eyes are hardened and back on Derek. “Despite what you may have heard about me, I don’t like to pretend I’m better than anyone else. I let people prove that they’re worth my time and, more often than not, they’re pretty cool. You, on the other hand? You’re a complete and utter douche and I hope I never see you again because I really can’t get in trouble for another fight at school.”

For a moment, Derek looks like he’s willing to take Pete up on the offer of a fight, his hands twitching into fists and shoulders tensing. All it takes is for Pete to raise an eyebrow and Derek backs off, sneering.

“Whatever.” He glances at Patrick, a mocking laugh leaving his throat. “Keep the nerd. Less for me to deal with.” 

He walks past Patrick, shoulder-checking him on the way with an overexaggerated ‘whoops’. Patrick stumbles, grimacing at the impact and trying to find his feet.

Pete’s hands find his shoulders; they hold him until he’s steady. It’s not fair, Patrick thinks, that he can recognize Pete’s touch so easily after just one night.

“That guy was an  _ ass _ . How the hell did you manage to come to the date with  _ him _ ?” Pete’s still glaring at Derek’s back, muscles tense as if he plans to run after him at the first sign of trouble. Patrick eases Pete’s hands away from him, successfully gaining his attention.

“He was the only person to ask me to the dance,” he admits, shame filling his cheeks with a bright red blush. “I liked the thought of having someone want to dance with me. I don’t know, it’s pathetic. Forget I said that.”

Pete smiles and it’s not as insulting as Patrick expected. “Nah, I get it. I didn’t come with anyone either. I’m sure it was nice, for a bit, to have a date.”

Patrick shrugs, thinking back to the first few dances he’d had with Derek. Had Derek held him the way Pete had, dramatically and gently? Had he smiled at him when he spoke or watched him with fascination in his eyes? Had Derek even cared to ask him to dance rather than yank him along like it was an obligation? 

“It was fine, I guess. I was just waiting for him because…” Patrick trails off, eyes suddenly widening in horror. “Oh my god, did he leave?”

“Um, I think so?” Pete says, checking over his shoulder. “I don’t know, looks like it. Why? You aren’t seriously thinking of going back with him, are you?”

“No! I mean, I wouldn’t, but…” Patrick yanks at his hair, stress forming a cruel ball of tension in his gut as his knuckles press against the hat Derek had given him. “He was my ride back.”

A pause. Patrick’s breathing picks up as he wonders just how far he’ll be able to walk in the cold he’d encountered outside. 

“Is that all?” 

Patrick blinks, looking over to Pete. “What?”

“Is that all? Like, the ride thing,” he says. “Because, like, I can give you a ride back. It’s no big deal.”

It’s no big deal. Yeah, right. It’s no big deal to just crawl into Peter Wentz’s car like it’s nothing, no big deal to lead Peter Wentz to his house, no big deal to pretend like Derek was wrong when he said Peter Wentz wouldn’t care about him in the morning. Peter Wentz—

He smiles at Patrick, the paint around his lips starting to crack, and Patrick smiles back.

Peter Wentz might be an intimidating rumor but Pete— the Cheshire Cat with confusing black clothes and messy dark hair— seems like an amazing guy.

“If you’re really okay with it,” Patrick says, sounding far too nervous for his liking. Pete merely laughs.

“Of course! I wouldn’t offer if I wasn’t!”

Pete’s car isn’t as extravagant as the rumors make it out to be, just a simple truck with empty chip bags littering the seats. The two laugh as they scrape them onto the floor. Crumbs stick to their hands and stars shine from their smiles. The drive to Patrick’s house isn’t any different, isn’t any more difficult than dancing with Pete had been. Something about the way he laughs about Patrick’s picky music taste and the way he promises to listen to Patrick’s favorite bands has his heart doing somersaults in his chest. He still won’t call it a crush, though. 

Not yet, anyway.

They arrive at Patrick’s house quicker than either of them seem to want, Pete hesitating to park as Patrick sighs at the darkened house. Only one light in the front room shines through and he wonders what he’ll tell his mother about the dance. She’d been so excited to hear about Derek. He wonders if she’s ever heard anything about Pete.

“Hey, so, you know how you deserved that last dance?” Pete asks, causing Patrick to groan and resist the urge to hide his face in his hands. Pete laughs at the reaction but caution hides behind the sound as he meets Patrick’s wary eyes. “Do you think I deserve a goodbye kiss?”

Derek had compared them to a fairy tale. Patrick had refused to admit he has a crush. 

Pete watches him, a patient smile painting his face just as vividly as the makeup.

“Take me on a date first,” Patrick says, surprising even himself. “You’ll deserve one after that.”

He’s out the door in a heartbeat, before he can hear Pete’s response. Shock at his words courses through his veins as he runs to his door. Shock and, somehow, confidence.

Behind him, Pete honks the car a few times and Patrick turns to see him smiling so wide the paint looks underwhelming in comparison. Patrick waves and Pete blows him a kiss, dramatic and cheesy and enough to make Patrick giggle like a child.

Enough to make him admit, if only to himself, that he might have a bit of a crush.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you believe me if I said that this was based on both of my younger sisters' homecoming experience a few weeks ago? They're both great stories, let me tell you a bit about them. 
> 
> So, one sister went to the dance with a guy she didn't like at all just because she was going to feel bad if she said no and actually cried a bit about how she couldn't go with the guy she really liked. And she's 17 so of course she wouldn't listen to her wiser older sister (haha) about how to just turn the first guy down so did go with him. Apparently, though, while they were dancing to a slow song, he asked if it was okay if he went dancing with another girl. And, again because she can't say no, she said yeah. Fortunately, for the last slow dance, her crush came up and asked her to dance so everything as fine.
> 
> Now, my other sister is 15 and lacks the anxieties that the rest of the family has. After the 17-year-old sister went dancing with her crush, this sister was left alone. Instead of doing what I would do (ya know, awkwardly wait until the song's over), she called over a guy she sort of recognized and said she felt awkward just standing there. When he asked what he was supposed to do about it, she, supposedly, uttered: "Dude, just dance with me". I've been laughing ever since.
> 
> Anyway, I had to work that into a fic somehow. I hope you enjoyed this chapter!! Please leave a comment to let me know what you think and have a fantastic rest of your day/night :)


	10. Magical Companions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A glimpse into the life of Pete and his familiar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, hey, yeah, look what's back! Okay. Here's the thing. I like writing quick snippets of stories since sticking with the same plot for a while kind of, to put it bluntly, kills my will to write at times. Not that I don't love what I'm working on now! I just... need to mix it up a little haha
> 
> Anyway. That means this mess is back! Yep! And here's all you need to know about them:
> 
> There probably won't be 31. I have too much going on in my life for that and I am sorry. However, that means that whatever I do write will probably be a decent length! With more plot and stuff! Fun! 
> 
> So, I hope you enjoy and I hope that you leave a comment with what you think! This might become a yearly thing depending on what the people want so let me know :)
> 
> Enjoy!

It’s late. Maybe evening. There’s dirt beneath Pete’s nails again and his mother will be upset but he doesn’t care, shouldn’t care, won’t care as he digs the cracked things deeper into the lawn beneath him, head banging back against the wall of the house as his eyes shut and his teeth crash against each other in another attempt to bite back those desperate screams.

It doesn’t matter, he thinks, when another of his nails splits against a rock. She’ll be mad, anyway. They had company over—  _ company, Peter!—  _ and he couldn’t keep it together for  _ one damn dinner, just one damn night of peace! _

A cruel part of his mind wonders if he should point out that he waited until most of the company was gone, the residual members being that of his own family sticking around to question and pester and interrogate the twelve-year-old boy before them.

If there’s one thing Pete hates about being young, it’s that he’s too young to sit with the older children evading the family conversations but far too old to bite Aunt Cassie’s finger when she sticks it in his face, joking about pinching his cute little cheeks.

Not, that is, that he didn’t bite her. He just can’t get away with it now. 

But it was too loud and far too much, dishes clattering as his younger sister started putting them away, and voices rising to cover the sound. The thumping of his uncle’s foot against the wooden floor, impatient to hurry back home before dark, and the crackling laughter of his grandparents each time his father made a joke at Pete’s expense. The burning of too many people but not enough of the right ones, the sizzling of every scream in the back of his throat, the electric hiss of untrained magic buzzing up and down and across his skin.

When he bit Aunt Cassie, he might have screamed a little; he might have shut his eyes and wished for that dark to last for longer than a blink.

He might have slammed his hands down on the table and made all the lights in the house go out.

He might have discovered that, despite his mother’s wishings and his father’s hopes, he inherited the family gift— curse, blessing, trait,  _ thing _ — of magic. Witch, wizard, warlock— everyone spat every variation out as he ran from the house in hopes of any form of escape.

And now here he is, back to the wall because he’s young enough for a tantrum but not old enough to make it past his backyard fence. 

His hands tear a bit more harshly into the grass and he can feel the roots against his fingertips, can already envision the way it’ll sound and feel and look when it’s been torn out and he’s not sure if that’s a magic thing or not but he keeps going, keeps going, needs something to destroy because—

“Hey.” It’s a softer voice, a younger one, and a gentle hand pressing against the back of his. “Don’t hurt the blades.”

Something cool and warm at once drips across his skin where this stranger— this boy, this child— touches him. Real and fake and fading and  _ real _ …

Pete opens his eyes, prays they aren’t red-rimmed, and turns to look at whoever’s appeared.

He’s younger than Pete but anyone could have guessed that from the murmur of his voice, all too fitting for the cherubic chubbiness of his cheeks, the pinkness of his lips, the brightness of his swirling blue-green eyes. He’s pale, dirt smudging the knees of his blue denim overalls as he kneels beside Pete, leaning forward with blossoms of red on his cheeks. 

Pete wants nothing more than to sit still and marvel in the way all his tension seems to coil together where the boy’s touching him, easing away like something come to soak up the mess in his skin, but he never gives himself what he really wants. He tears his hand away, nose crinkling up as he stares the other kid up and down.

“And what are you supposed to be?”  _ What _ instead of  _ who  _ because that’s what all the kids in his class say now, insulting each other by denying the humanity within anyone when they speak.

This boy, though, takes it all too seriously. He blinks and it’s then that Pete sees the fluttering of his breath, the shaking of his hands, vibrations in his aura that speak of anything other than human. His head tips to the side gracelessly, a fall to the shoulder rather than a curious gesture.

“I sensed you were in trouble,” he says instead of answering. “Or upset. And I sensed the magic and I wanted to help. I can help, you know. Watch over you and teach you and be your friend or whatever you’ll have me as and…”

And he doesn’t speak like a kid when he’s looking at Pete like that. Pete forgets to wonder where he came from— the house a block over or maybe hell, he’s not sure— and he focuses on what he does know.

This boy is a familiar.  _ His  _ familiar. 

Pete knows it the way he knew it was magic tickling his senses this morning, a sudden knowledge that sank into his gut with all the heavy sickness of a rock in a creek, still and unmoving against the rushing storm of life around it. 

Now, though, this boy’s a rock beside him and Pete will hold onto anything, even if it means he’ll sink twice as fast.

“Okay,” he says quickly, the way his grandmother— the only one ever willing to warn him of what to do should his magic appear— always told him not to. He nods and sticks out a hand, ready to share the burden with someone— anyone— else. “I accept.”

The amber-hued lights from the setting sun spark across the other boy’s eyes, highlighting the golds around the center— the promise that this  _ thing  _ is not from earth.

Still, the boy smiles and he looks exactly as what he presents himself to be.

“Good!” He cries, taking Pete’s hand with more force than Pete would know to expect. “I’ll teach you everything! I’m Patrick and I already know we’re going to be the best of friends.”

<><><> <><><> <><><>

It’s later. Maybe three or four years later and Pete’s learned many things from Patrick. How to feel safe with his magic, how to keep it in and how to let it loose. He’s learned terms he’s already forgotten and whispers of potions and more magical talismans. He’s learned how to be the warlock— what they’re calling him now, though Patrick still calls him Pete.

But, most importantly, he’s learned about Patrick.

Patrick likes to hide, he’s learned— unlike all the stories of those cunning and crafty familiar spirits. He likes to fly away from his problems on paper-thin wings, hidden from the world as if being so small could eventually help him to disappear. 

But he always hides in the lawn where he found Pete and that’s the first place Pete searches when he first senses that something’s off with his familiar.

_ I’m close now _ , he grins, the thrumming of their connected auras increasing as he steps further into the backyard.  _ I’ll find him and I’ll find out what’s wrong then I’ll make who hurt him pay. _

It’s not supposed to be this way, he knows. His familiar’s supposed to protect him, not the other way around.

Still. Pete hasn’t learned to complain about that, yet.

Pete follows the red strands pulling from his aura, the deep shade of fire that prove Patrick’s shifted. It leads him to one of the trees planted in the center of the yard, just tall enough Pete has to lift to his tiptoes to peer at the branch he knows Patrick’s on.

Patrick. Red and brilliant and winged, a dragonfly with wings that won’t ever still. 

“Hey—” Pete cuts off, catching himself before speaking out loud. He’s learned that Patrick doesn’t like that, doesn’t  _ need  _ that, when he’s like this.

Instead, Pete focuses on the red channel between them and lets all his concern flood through it. Patrick’s wings twitch nervously but a warmth extends from it, landing on Pete’s chest like reassurance he’s okay.

Pete’s concern intensifies. Patrick lifts off the branch, fluttering in the air, and the small tilt of his flight— the threat of torn wings healing, the jittery nerves in his false reassurances— grant Pete all the answer he needs. 

“Gabe,” he whispers, forgetting himself as the thought of the other familiar— William’s cobra, the boys who moved next door when they heard there was another magic kid around— fills his mind. “That damn jerk, he—”

Patrick cuts him off but not with words— no, he never seems to  _ need  _ words. He rests on Pete’s hand the way he did before, wings slowing as he stares up, unreadable if not for the suddenly intense aura around him.

_ Don’t do anything stupid _ , it seems to say, the way it always does.  _ I’m fine. _

This time, it isn’t a lie, and Pete’s heart rests when he sees Patrick’s wing beginning to heal the way only a familiar’s can. A similar ghost sensation scratches down Pete’s back but he pays it no mind, merely grinning because it’s proof of their connection, proof that Patrick’s alright, proof that Patrick’s  _ his _ .

“Okay,” Pete says, laughing when Patrick flies up to rest on his head. 

_ For good luck _ , Patrick said once when Pete asked why he did it. Pete never asked who the luck was for.

As Patrick presses into Pete’s aura, pulling out the calm and happy and serene, Pete already has his answer. 

<><><> <><><> <><><>

It’s later. Not so many years later that they’re different people but enough time for Pete to learn that there’s no fun in keeping his magic hidden.

Today, his being tingles down to the bone with every incantation he learned from Patrick’s skilled tongue, every whispered curse and spell he was told never to repeat. He likes to think he tricked Patrick into telling him but he knows Patrick knew the truth; he knows Patrick will be here to stop him at any moment.

But that’s for later and, now, Pete’s staring down William Beckett and his god awful cobra in an empty parking lot, too far past midnight to be safe. 3 a.m. nearly— the devil’s hour, the witching hour. It seems stupid but it also seems so damn fitting.

“So are we finally settling this silly feud?” William asks as if bored, spinning a ball of bright and shiny energy in his hand. “Finally proving I’m the stronger of us both?”

“You talk too much, Beckett,” Pete snaps, filling his own hand with the electricity his family hates, snapping and sparking with that wonderful shade of icy blue. “Can we just get it over with?”

William rolls his eyes, Gabe standing behind him in his human form as William lifts his arm and whispers some spell. The cobra’s eyes are darker than the night around them and, for a moment, Pete’s envious that William, at least, has his familiar beside him.

“Do you have somewhere to be, Peter?” William asks, the energy dispersing around him before disappearing into the night with firework lights of bursting silvers and golds. Pete still doesn’t understand exactly  _ what  _ William’s magic is but he certainly knows he doesn’t like it; this, too, is jealousy as he watches the sparks rain down around the other boys. “Or are you hoping that bug of yours doesn’t find out?”

Pete growls and he doesn’t know if it’s from the word “bug” or the fact that William’s right. Patrick had begged him— warned him— not to fight, going so far to foretell great harm in Pete should he disobey. But William had slandered Pete and his family— called them all witches, left ashes at their doorstep, acted like he had more class and didn’t deserve to burn just as much— and Pete isn’t known for letting things go.

Soon, the dawn will brighten the sky and Patrick will wake from the sleeping draught Pete had slipped in with his tea. It was a half-hearted attempt and one Pete expected Patrick to notice. Seeing Patrick collapse onto the floor mid-sentence was just as striking as the trust Pete suddenly realized Patrick has in him.

“Oh, shut up,” Pete says, filling his other palm with lightning sparks. “I just can’t stand to look at your face anymore.”

William laughs and it’s all the invitation Pete needs to raise his hand, prepared to strike.

A burst of white behind his eyes hits first and it takes only a moment for Pete to realize it’s from Patrick’s sudden tugging on their connection, on their aura.

_ STOP _

He’s there a moment later, the little dragonfly— the devil’s fly, according to some of Pete’s favorite legends— buzzing by his ear for just a second before replacing that body with the human Pete’s come to call his best friend.

“Peter, stop,” Patrick says, red hair a mess as he reaches for Pete’s wrist. He’s grown older, too, the image of an angsty teen with angry eyes and blotchy skin, the antithesis to Pete’s long dark bangs and ink-stained arms. “You don’t… There’s something about their auras, something Gabe’s doing to protect him. You cannot win this fight.”

And Pete should listen to his familiar— it’s what he’s there for, right?— but Patrick’s never doubted him and hearing such mistrust hurts worse than any fire or ice or magic William can throw his way. 

Besides, from the way Gabe’s curled an arm protectively over William’s chest, he knows exactly what they’ve done, exactly how they’d taken their connection to a bond. Something unspeakable and looked down upon in the world of magic but that’s not why Pete’s blood curls in his veins, it’s not why he tugs away from Patrick’s grip.

He hurls a strike of lightning William’s way because he wants him to  _ hurt,  _ he wants him to  _ scream,  _ he wants him to lose what  _ Pete never had. _

Just as quick, William and Gabe both raise a hand. The electricity deflects off something unseen— a shield, more powerful than any Pete’s ever created— and hurls back at Pete.

Pete feels the pain before he understands what’s happened, a burst of iron-hot shocks embedding in his ribs and extending into his chest like roots. His hands grab his side, his throat lets loose a terrible scream.

His eyes open and he watches Patrick fall to his knees.

Patrick,  _ Patrick _ , not Pete. Because Patrick’s the familiar, the protector, and he threw himself in front of the blast. 

Pete falls down beside him, suddenly uncaring of how Gabe and William laugh, uncaring of how they taunt and make their escape like the cowards they are. Pete will make them pay for this later, he swears.

For now, though, he just holds Patrick and searches his mind for any of those healing rituals Patrick tried to teach him before Pete decided they were boring and demanded to move on. He whispers a thousand apologies and a hundred spells, waiting for Patrick’s eyes to become fully human once more instead of the horrible slits of someone in too much pain to properly shift.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Pete says over and over and over.

Hours later, when Patrick finally stands, blinking back tears and leaning into Pete as his body heals, he only says one thing.

“It’s okay.”

Pete knows it’s not.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

It’s later. A handful of years or maybe a lifetime.

After the incident with William, Pete insisted on learning more healing spells— just in case just in case  _ just in case _ — and Patrick reluctantly began to teach Pete about battle curses. The shock of Pete’s magic had stained Patrick's hair a blonde-white shade that he hid beneath hats and dragonfly shiftings for years until, finally, he gave in and accepted the color.

Pete wouldn't admit it but he hated the color, despised the reminder of his mistake and what it could have cost him.

“I’ll find out how to turn it back eventually,” Patrick had said upon witnessing Pete’s gaping expression. “But first we need to focus on your magic.”

Pete’s older now, past the age of stolen love potions and silly hexes, and he’s working on a new sigil to paint into his apartment. It won’t be his first time living on his own— aside from Patrick— but he’s always nervous when moving into a new place. He’s always scared this will be the one where people find out, where they burn him or, worse, take Patrick.

Pete’s older so he knows more; he knows to be afraid. 

Pete’s older and, as he’s reminded each time he opens his eyes, so is Patrick. 

Another reminder walks through the door, Patrick dressed in sweats and an oversized tee as he leans against the wall, frowning at how Pete’s still at work so late at night. He’s come from his own bedroom, hair tangled and messy because he’s already put his brush in with the moving boxes and he refuses to use Pete’s. 

In another life, Pete imagines another scenario where he might see Patrick like this. 

As soon as the thought surfaces, he turns back to his work, scrawling intricate lines and whispering blessings beneath his breath. He can’t allow himself to think, to feel, not if it’s about his familiar— not if it’s like  _ that _ .

But Patrick never makes things easy and, soon, he’s seated next to Pete, shoulder-to-shoulder because they’ve never had a problem with contact before.

“You should get some sleep,” he says. “I just checked the astral plane and… And there are no nightmares there tonight.”

He says it like he was asked to perform this task and, perhaps, as a familiar, he was. But Pete’s never told him to do so, never told him to fight off the monsters that lurk in his mind just so Pete can dream of Patrick in every way he shouldn’t.

Pete’s heard stories of familiars who read minds and, not for the first time, he’s glad Patrick can’t.

“No, you should sleep,” he says, a weak defense. It could be a joke but Patrick doesn’t laugh.

“Pete,” he says, running his hand through Pete's hair in a doting manner. After all this time, his skin is still as soft and as soothing as the day they met and it hardly seems fair. “Pete, sleep. You can finish your work tomorrow. I’ll be here. I’ll watch your soul.”

And Pete doesn’t know what that means, not exactly, but Patrick always says it with such reverence that Pete can’t help but follow what he says. Like a child, he lets Patrick tug him to his room, lets him push him gently into the bed, lets himself shut his eyes and rest. 

He doesn’t mean to dream of Patrick the way he does, the intimate scenes where they’re pressed skin-to-skin and Patrick almost looks like the devil other witches say he is. He dreams of tugging through soft blonde hair, horns digging into his palms as he presses into hot pale skin. He dreams of kissing lips that hide fanged teeth and he dreams of a world where no one would care at all.

When he wakes, Patrick’s still standing by the door, arms crossed and shoulders slumped as if he hasn’t moved all night.

“What are you doing?” Pete asks, his voice thick with sleep. 

Patrick smiles.

“I’ve been watching over your soul.”

When he turns to leave, the shadows above him look just like devil horns.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

It’s later, years later, and Patrick is a monster.

At least, that’s what the people say. The ones in the community Pete’s dug out for himself, the misfits and magics and fellow scum of the earth. They whisper of the devil’s fly who follows Pete around; they hiss about the shadows he leaves on their walls.

Pete can ignore whispers and rumors and hissings. But he can’t ignore how much sense they make.

He finds Patrick in their home, making dinner with a smile on his face. He’s heavier than he’d been in the past, hair gone back to its natural shade with no explanation, and Pete tries not to think of all the tales he’s heard of creatures who gain magic by feasting on children.

Patrick’s not like that, he knows. But he also knows Patrick’s not what he says he is.

So, brilliantly, stupidly, heroically, desperately… Pete demands an answer.

“What are you?” He asks his best friend of nearly a decade. “What are you hiding?”

Patrick turns, eyebrows raised and lips parted as if he’s just remembered something important. With one hand, he stirs whatever he’d been cooking— something warm, something fresh, something he promised would keep Pete from getting sick when the cold settles in.

With the other hand, he reaches for Pete, brushing against the rough fabric of Pete’s denim jacket until he finds a stray leaf— orange and red and as brilliant as the shade of his hair.

As Pete watches, breathless, Patrick drops the leaf into the soup and turns back around.

“I was forgetting that ingredient,” he says. “Thank you.”

And Pete knows his best friend and he knows better than to grow so needlessly upset at being ignored by someone as distracted as Patrick. 

But Pete’s always been impulse— electric and buzzing with a hatred against anything and everything made to ignore him. His temper flares with a hissing pop in one of the outside lights, an explosion of glass and wires somewhere neither can see.

“Calm, Peter,” Patrick says, still stirring, still maddening. He’s learned to control his own temper over the years, learned to spill nothing but calm into their shared aura, and it’s the worst change Pete’s seen. How dare he hide away the biting words and apparent glee of a good fight? Patrick may have been more sensible in the past but he’s always been a fire, one spark away from blazing. 

Something hot burns in Pete’s hand; he wonders if it’s the push he’s always searched for.

Patrick sighs; another light bulb bursts.

“Oh, come on,” Patrick says, annoyed now. “Was that really necessary?”

Pete could hiss that yes, it was; he could toss them all into the dark and watch Patrick try to fly his way out of this one. More a moth or a pest than a dragonfly, a devil’s fly—

Pete spins Patrick to face him, ignoring the gasps of pain when the electric leak of his emotions soaks into Patrick’s skin.

“Pete!” Patrick scolds. “Calm down!”

_ “No _ . _ ”  _ Pete says it in both his mind and his voice, the world disappearing into a haze of colors and lines, souls larger than bodies could ever be. Patrick burns before him, a form with no shape other than disaster as he fills the room, every color of every fire deep within his spirit. Pete’s own soul flickers in response, the cool blue of electricity dulling into violet where he grabs Patrick’s arms.

Something icy meets his palms, Patrick’s attempts to calm him down, to pull and tug and push at the aura until it’s just so. Pete shuts him out, responding with a force of his own, playing with the areas where their souls are aligned. Like the strings of some worn-out instrument, he tunes Patrick’s aura, hoping for the right sound— the true sound— to escape from beneath his fingers.

But then Patrick’s gone. 

Not physically, no; Pete can still see him as the beast his soul is. But his spirit— his soul, his aura— isn’t something Pete can feel. It isn’t aligned or in tune it’s…

Gone.

Pete tears back into the physical world, stumbling and falling onto the floor with wide eyes refusing to see anything.

Everything is nothing, the sensation of losing what matters most.

“Come back,” he pleads, his breath as if it was never his to begin with, taken and stolen with Patrick’s connection to him. “Come back, I’m sorry, come back, come back, come  _ back, Patrick, please—” _

“Shh.” Patrick’s arms, sure as wings, wrap around Pete’s trembling frame. He’s there, suddenly returned, tendrils of his soul reaching out to rest back against Pete. Fire and ice and feeling and Pete is whole once more. “I’m right here. I’m sorry; I panicked; you’re  _ okay _ .”

Pete shuts his eyes and sees nothing but Patrick’s aura— the blaze of something unreal, the fury of someone haunted.

Pete takes comfort in the sight; he lets himself rest.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

It’s later, late enough that all rumors lay dormant in the back of Pete’s mind.

It’s later, late enough that Pete’s on the run from hunters who saw Patrick shift, who wish the witch and his familiar harm.

It’s later. But not late enough that Pete or Patrick are safe.

Patrick’s ahead of Pete as they make their escape one midnight, the familiar flying forward and granting Pete vision of which streets are safe and which are littered with the telltale black cars of Witch Hunters. Pete makes note of their path and then, a small bag slung over his shoulders, sneaks outside and begins to run.

It’s later but not late enough when he hears a car rev to life far behind him, perhaps a block back. There’s no reason to hear it other than his magic; there’s no reason to hear it other than how deadly silent the rest of the night has been. 

Patrick appears before Pete, human and red-faced as they lock eyes. Like dominoes, more motors make themselves known and simply running down the street won’t save Pete— won’t save Patrick.

“Go,” Pete says because Patrick’s the one those hunters want, the one everyone has always called a demon or devil. Pete might have believed those lies— might believe them still— but he’ll be damned before he lets anyone hurt his familiar.

Patrick, of course, only moves to grab Pete’s hand and pull him along with him. 

“I’ll figure this out,” he says. “But first we need to run.” 

Pete barely hears his words, only the stubborn tone beneath them. His heart twists in his chest— fear and nothing more— but his response is nothing but a spell meant to create darker shadows, enveloping them in the night.

Patrick leads with a speed belying his appearance, running as if he’s flying as he and Pete escape the neighborhood in favor of empty lots and abandoned parking spaces. Here, the shadows are thin and Pete can only recite his incantation for so long. It’s merely a matter of time before those hunters interrupt the astral plane with sounds high enough to shatter auras, with weapons meant to tear souls from their bodies. 

He doesn’t know where Patrick’s leading him until they wind up in an alley, Patrick shoving Pete into the darkness and following with labored breaths.

“Did we lose them?” Pete asks. Patrick cocks his head to the side, listening, before a dangerous rumble sounds from his chest.

“No,” he says, stepping away. Pete’s suddenly cold all over and it has nothing to do with the night. “No, but I can fix that.”

Patrick’s stubborn and Pete’s terrified, grasping for Patrick’s hand as Patrick steps further and further away.

“It’s not safe,” Pete pleads. “I’ll cast a spell or use the magic you taught me or…”

“Another day, Pete,” Patrick says, prophesying as if there’s any time for that. “Your magic is special and not meant to be used on vermin such as them. Trust me. And promise you won’t look to the skies.”

Patrick’s the one incanting now, the words a song on his lips as shadows cover Pete’s eyes, his body, his soul. He’s hidden and alone, only the soft red thrumming in his chest proof that Patrick’s still connected in any way.

But he can feel when Patrick leaves, shifts, goes toward the danger instead of away. 

He can feel his terror and Patrick’s certainty right beside it.

He can feel when something impossible happens.

The red light in Pete’s chest— a sign of Patrick’s soul, the place where they’re connected— tears and grows and expands until it’s all Pete sees, the shade of fire overtaking the night. Pete’s heart stops and he uses his last unwavering breath to cry out a spell to break him from Patrick’s shadowy chains, to see things as they are.

Something brilliant and terrible lights up the sky and Pete opens his mouth to scream.

The cry he hears, though, is not his own.

It comes from the beast above, the monster, the creature.

It comes from the red dragon above; it comes from Patrick.

Larger than life and a splash of violent shades across the stars and moon, Patrick soars above the city with a deafening scream, flames igniting from his throat like every secret he’s kept hidden from Pete until now.

Pete watches with wide eyes, eyes burning from the heat of Patrick’s fire even this far away. Something sublime fills Pete’s chest and he is suddenly not himself, not in his being, but with Patrick— miles above ground with no fear of anything but losing that which he loves.

Patrick shrieks and a pillar of flames land upon a car that’d been creeping down the alley, the vehicle shuddering and shattering like one of Pete’s light bulbs in a tantrum. Something blue and cold sizzles across Pete’s body and he recognizes it as his magic wishing to join in, his magic calling to the familiar he’s claimed as his own.

Patrick soars past him once more and Pete falls back into his body, feeling nothing but awe in the descent.

It’s later. It’s later and Pete’s on his knees, shaking and barely holding himself together. Somehow, it feels as if he’s the one who changed, the one who transformed, the one who proved he’s exactly the demon he’s always been.

It’s later. It’s later and Patrick’s at his side, human and smelling of ash, his voice the ember guiding Pete back from the darkness of his thoughts.

It’s later. It’s later and…

It’s later.

“—never let them hurt you, even if I have to condemn myself first,” Patrick’s saying when Pete fades back into his own mind. “Even if I have to burn the whole world, Peter, they will never touch you.”

“You,” Pete interrupts. The light of dawn clings to the horizon and he wonders how long he’s been stuck in his fears, comparing demons and devils to what he saw. “You… You’re…”

Patrick raises his eyebrows, green-blue eyes magnified behind glasses Pete bought for him a month ago. He almost smiles, leaning forward, his breath hot across Pete’s cheek. 

It’s not as terrifying as it should be; Pete’s pounding heart is not from any form of fear.

“I’m your familiar,” Patrick says, hands on Pete’s shoulders and eyes on his soul. “And I will always protect you.”

<><><> <><><> <><><>

It’s later and, one day, much later, Pete and Patrick will tell this story to anyone who sits still long enough to listen.

But it’s not that late, yet, and Pete and Patrick keep this tale to themselves. Unwritten and unspoken, it's only passed back and forth through the pressing of red against blue, of Pete against Patrick, of lips against lips.

And. later, they'll finally admit they're in love.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how I feel about the ending but I think I really like how this turned out! Leave me a comment, let me know what you think, laugh about the fact that I clearly know nothing about witches and familiars.....
> 
> Until next time! :)


	11. Jump Scares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The scariest things here are the attempts at fluff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boo
> 
> Haha, look. I just like writing but that doesn't mean it's always the best. We're back at my attempts at fluff so.... *shaky and uncertain thumbs up at the audience*
> 
> I do hope you like this, though. The outline for it seemed funny so, hold onto that.

Pete has a notorious habit of getting Patrick to agree to things late at night or early in the morning, stealing promises from tired lips hidden beneath a pillow shoved over Patrick’s face— a promise typically followed by whiny complaints and gentle snores. It was something he discovered pretty early on in the band, poking Patrick’s cheek as their van bumped its way down the road. This nuisance would continue until Patrick said he’d do anything, literally anything, if Pete would just let him sleep.

Nearly two decades later, it’s a trick Pete still tries and, furthermore, it’s a trick that still works.

“Come on,” Pete says, pulling on Patrick’s wrist as they march through fallen leaves and dropped candy wrappers. “You  _ promised _ to do the haunted stuff with me this year!”

Though he knows it’s more than useless, Patrick digs his heels into the ground a few feet away from the entrance into what is, apparently, known as the  _ Nightmare Shack.  _ As far as haunted attractions go, it’s small and barely a few rooms long, the entrance and exit through the same door as people walk in circles with the sole intention of being scared.

Patrick is not one of those people. Patrick is smart and Patrick does not enjoy anything remotely related to fear, terror or horror.

“No, I didn’t,” he complains, finally standing firm enough that even Pete’s tugging can’t move him. “I, like, I muttered something that sounded like a yes when I was sleeping. That’s not promising anything.”

“Half-asleep agreements counted when you told me to cut my hair,” Pete says as if there’s anything wrong with Patrick forcing him to cut the hair he’d been growing out for the entirety of their last tour. It was for everyone’s sake and sanity and it's not Patrick's fault if Pete refuses to see that. “Besides, it’s a little horror thing in the middle of nowhere. Literally, look around. How scary can it be?”

Only doing so to waste more time, Patrick glances around the small pumpkin patch and Halloween celebration Pete's been pestering him to go to for the past week. 

It’s… Okay, it’s not extravagant, at all. 

A few firepits take up a majority of the area, kids in costumes crowded around the flames to make smores— or, more accurately, to terrify their parents each time they toss something into the pit. A pumpkin patch lies beyond that, circling around the area with pumpkins of every size littering the ground like an orange-spotted disease. A costume and decorations shop sits at the other end, next to a maze made up of orange tarps. 

And behind all that, past the maze and shop and safety, is a sketchy shack-shaped thing echoing with the shrieks of children and the maniacal laughter of the costumed actors inside.

“You don’t know that it’s not… that’s it as…. That it’s at all like the rest of the place,” Patrick says, careful not to be too insulting lest an employee overhear and tell the people working the haunted house to be extra mean to him. “They could have just budgeted to make the horror thing really fucking terrifying.”

A mother passing by gasps and glares at him as she and her daughter— dressed as a ballerina fairy princess, it seems— wander past them and straight into the haunted house.

Patrick gets five calm breaths in before he hears their screams and ends up tugging on Pete’s hand in an attempt to get them to leave.

Pete, cruel as he is, only laughs. “You’re not really that scared, are you? We’ve seen Halloween movies before together, they never bothered you.”

“Yeah, well,” Patrick says, face red when he finally yanks his hand free from Pete’s. “We would watch those while on the road where it’s obvious that a serial killer isn’t going to break into your house.”

They would also watch them before they got together, as Patrick refuses to point out to Pete. They weren’t dating during last year’s Halloween or any of the Halloweens before that so Patrick was allowed to be the stupid best friend yelping at all the obvious jump scares or hiding behind his hands when things got too gory. And it wasn’t like Pete would stick around to watch Patrick stay up all night in his bunk, feeling sick at the memory of whatever ghost story he’d watched this time.

But now they’re dating and it’s stupid but it’s like his mind suddenly woke up one day and said: “Oh, so we have to keep impressing Pete, now.”

As humorous as Pete may find it, Patrick’s certain that running out of a kid’s haunted house scared out of his mind is not the right way to impress his boyfriend— especially when that boyfriend is Pete Wentz, the man with Halloween and all things edgy running through his veins in place of blood.

Perhaps throwing a fit about it isn’t impressive, either, but it’s far more in character than the alternative.

Pete steps closer, eyes soft, and Patrick almost lets himself hope that they’ll be heading back home now.

Instead, Pete lifts a tootsie roll in front of his face. “I’ll give you my candy if you go in with me.”

Patrick sighs and swears he doesn’t mean to pout; it’s just something his face does. “You were going to give me your candy, anyway.”

“You don’t know that.” Pete’s a terrible liar but he does know Patrick’s weak spots and, really, it’s unfair he’d go for the sweet tooth so soon after tricking him in his sleep, as well. Like a cat being teased by a light on the wall, Patrick watches the candy being waved in front of his face before groaning and slumping his shoulders in defeat.

“Fine.” It’s a sad sound that’s quickly followed by a slightly happier one when Pete presses the tootsie roll into his palm.

“Awesome!” Pete says, taking Patrick’s hand again and smiling brighter when he’s greeted with no resistance. “If we get through this whole thing without you freaking out, we can watch  _ Ghostbusters _ when we get home.”

Patrick can’t tell if Pete’s taunting him with more weak spots or if he’s being genuine and, at this point, he doesn’t really care.

Quicker than Patrick had hoped they would, the two end up at the entrance to the shack. Pete bounces on the balls of his feet, more excited than he has any right to be, and Patrick feels his heart leap into his throat.

“Wait!” He says right as Pete’s about to pull them in. He points at a sign beside the door, laughing nervously to himself. “Shouldn’t we, um, shouldn’t we read the stuff about it first?”

Pete glances over at the writing for a total of two seconds before looking back at Patrick with the least amused expression Patrick has ever seen. “Trick, that’s an overdramatic advertisement for their sister location. Or, wait, do you really want to read marketing for…  _ a place known for its arcane knowledge of hell _ ?” 

“Oh.” Patrick shudders and he’s glad he can pin it on the cliched writing. “Probably not.”

“Didn’t think so. Now, are we going in?”

Patrick pauses and bites his lip before nodding. “I guess we’re going in.”

Pete smiles and it’s only the brightness of his grin that keeps Patrick’s heart from dropping once they walk through the door and into the darkness behind it.

For Patrick, it’s exactly as bad he’d expected it to be, if not worse. Though the building itself is small, a variety of black tarps create winding hallways circling in and back out of the small area. The corridors, thin and dark, close in around Patrick with monster masks and skeletons hanging in the corners.

There’s no reason for it to be scary— not with the cheap decorations and cheesy thunderstorm sound effects— but the flashing lights and screams in the distance leave nothing but a sense of sudden danger in Patrick’s irrational mind.

“You good so far?” Pete asks. Patrick can’t see him well in the dim lighting but he directs his best glare at the smirk he knows Pete must be wearing.

“Let’s just get this over with.”

`As if on cue, a spider the size of the hats Patrick used to wear launches from the dark and into his face. 

“ _ FUCK!”   _ Patrick’s scream is a note he can only ever hope to hit onstage.

And Pete’s laughter? The glint of white teeth smiling at the toy spider dangling from some stupid spring contraption?

It’s the only reason Patrick grabs his arm and agrees to trudge forward.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

Only three or so minutes have passed but it feels like it should have been longer. That, or there should be a limit on how many pop-out props and screaming actors should be placed within the same thirty seconds because, at this point, Patrick’s beginning to think it’s all too much.

He and Pete creep down one of the last hallways, Patrick clinging to his arm tight enough that Pete’s hand must be going numb at this point. It’s not that he wants their bassist to lose his hand— though the irony of that would be amazing. Patrick wishes he could peel himself away and not go sheet-white each time a little girl with extravagant zombie make-up jumps out at them. He wants to step aside and prove he’s brave; or, at least, he wants the space needed to properly punch Pete for laughing at him each time it happens.

Still, it is nice to notice how Pete’s arm extends across Patrick’s chest whenever something scary does happen, as if on instinct. 

“Almost done,” Pete says, over his shoulder and towards Patrick. 

The music around them picks up into another growing crescendo promising someone with a weapon— a chainsaw or machete, probably— is right around the corner. Patrick adamantly refuses to close his eyes; last time he did that, Pete noticed— of course— and promised to tease him about it for the next week if he did it again.

“What, have you done this before?” Patrick asks, the thousands of layers of sarcasm hiding any trembling that may be found. 

“Yeah, actually. I came here when it opened last year which means you can trust me when I say it’s not scary. Or, well, not dangerous.” Pete’s sentence trails off a bit when Patrick shrieks at a scream mask dropping from the ceiling in front of them— right on time with the music, just like he’d expected. 

“Then you should  _ warn  _ me of shit like that!” He complains, holding Pete’s arm even tighter. Pete laughs, though Patrick likes to pretend it’s fond.

“Well, they do change it up every now and then,” he says, picking up the pace as the chattering voices of some children— fucking  _ children _ , what the hell— echo down the hall behind them. It’s not part of the attraction but, mixed with ghoulish wails and distant shouts, it’s one of the most terrifying things Patrick’s ever heard. “I’m just hoping they didn’t change this one thing over… They didn’t!”

At Pete’s victorious tone, Patrick lifts his head from Pete’s shoulder to look at him strangely.

“They didn’t wha— Oh!” His own sentence, for once today, is cut off not by a scream but by Pete tugging him through the tarps and into a hidden room where extra supplies and props lay scattered around. “What are we doing here? You said we were almost done.”

“Don’t worry,” Pete says, invoking the two exact words most likely to make Patrick’s anxieties double. “The exit’s right around the next corner. I just wanted to take a quick break.”

With his eyes now properly adjusted to the dark— and with his fears briefly abated by the break— Patrick finds it much easier and more satisfying to properly narrow his eyes and furrow his brows at Pete. “Is this some kind of trick? Are you setting me up for a trick?”

“No.” Pete doesn’t look half as offended at the suspicion as Patrick had expected he would. 

Of course, that’s because he’s hiding a Hershey’s kiss behind his back— one that he reveals with a smile far too bright for a place filled with gallons of extra fake blood.

“It’s not a trick,” Pete says. “Because I got you a treat instead. Remember? I said I’d give you my candy? So, do you want it?”

Patrick blinks. “That’s still so stupid, oh my god, this couldn’t have waited until we were outside for—”

Pete slips one hand into Patrick’s, using the other to caress Patrick’s cheek and pull him into a gentle— sweet, smooth, like the chocolate he’d dropped onto the ground— kiss.

“You’re all red, you know that?” Pete asks, barely pulling back and instead allowing the words to brush across Patrick’s lips as if they were his. “Sweating and panting and making all these noises when you jump. It’s cute.”

Patrick’s not going to say Pete’s wrong but that doesn’t mean he has to say he’s right. “Come on, this is the least romantic place in the world. Let’s just do this at home so we don’t have to worry about people seeing or hearing or, or, or…  _ Pete _ .”

Patrick looks up at the wrong time because Pete’s smile has shifted, warmed, and the room is suddenly too small and too hot. Patrick stumbles back and Pete follows until it’s only the wall behind Patrick; it’s only Pete in front of him.

When Pete dips forward to press his lips to Patrick’s, Patrick’s ready. He surges forward to meet him halfway, grasping for Pete’s shirt the way he’d reached for his arm before, pulling him until their bodies are as close as space will allow. His heart thuds across his chest, remnants of fear adding to the desperation to feel Pete in any way he can. Pete cradles Patrick’s jaw in his hand and blunt nails dig into his skin but Patrick doesn’t care, not even as embarrassing whimpers escape from his throat and add to the horrific soundtrack of ghosts and ghouls just outside the tarp. 

It’s one particular shrill shriek from the speakers, though, that has Patrick pulling away with a small gasp— that, and the following maniacal laughter of actors preparing to scare more innocent victims.

“Pete,” he mutters, looking away because he knows one look into Pete’s puppy-dog eyes will have him giving into the most illegal of ideas. “Pete, we should go.”

Sure enough, Pete has the pleading tone to match the look he most certainly is wearing. “You don’t want to—”

Patrick barks out a laugh before Pete can finish, looking up and hoping he isn’t too flushed. “Oh, I… I want to. Trust me, I just… I don’t want us to get caught. Do you know how bad that would be?”  Looking at Pete forces Patrick to put extra emphasis on the words, the sight of his lips— slick and shiny from spit— causing his knees and will to weaken.

This, however, is fixed by Pete sighing and rolling his eyes, though this time is definitely more endeared than annoyed.

“Fine,” he says, dragging out the word. “Figures you’d find something else to be scared of even in the least scary area of the entire shack. You wanna hold my hand again? I think it’s got some of the feeling back. Or are you—  _ AAAHHHH!” _

Just as Pete opens the tarp to sneak back out, something sudden and terriyfing, shrieking and cackling, jumps out from the shadows to send him sprawling back into the supply room, screaming and wide-eyed. 

“Oh my god, oh my god, Pete, what is it? What is it? Is it a murderer or a demon or a ghost or—” Patrick frantically jumps back, his voice dozens of octaves higher than usual. Pete keeps panting as Patrick— shaking and sick to his stomach— demands answers. Pete keeps silent until Patrick has no choice but to peek out, set on saving Pete from whatever actor decided to take advantage of his moment of distraction.

What he sees, however, is the cheapest, most cliche skeleton toy known to man. Plastic and falling apart, the kind of toy that pops out when a certain button is pressed, smaller than Patrick’s hand and smiling in a kid-friendly way.

Slowly, the scream that had been building in Patrick’s throat changes into something brighter, meaner, happier— it shifts into the most hysterical laughing fit he’s had in a while.

“Pete,” he says, looking back at where Pete’s still lying across the floor like a fallen warrior. “ _ Pete _ , it’s a  _ toy _ .”

The words take their time sinking into Pete’s brain; he blinks and opens and shuts his mouth a half dozen times before he smiles, slowly and shamefully.

“I-I know that,” he says, standing on trembling legs. “I was just making fun of how you’ve been acting.”

Pete’s always been a horrible liar.

“Sure you were,” Patrick says, still giggling around the words. “Let’s just get out before the creature from toys-r-us attacks again.”

“You never know,” Pete says, rolling his eyes and doing a terrible job of pretending he wasn’t terrified. “If anything was going to kill us, it’d be that.”

“Uh-huh,” Patrick says. “You wanna hold my hand for the rest of it?”

Pete doesn’t hesitate or joke back the way Patrick might have expected. 

“Um,  _ yes _ ,” he says, taking Patrick’s hand and holding tightly as they cautiously hurry around the corner and towards the light at the end. “Promise to protect me?”

Stupid and cliche, it’s perfectly Pete in the earnestness. 

“Always,” Patrick says. “No little skeletons will come for you so long as I’m around.”

Perfectly cliche, it’s stupidly Patrick in the swell of sincerity in his chest as he says it.

Then again, he thinks, he did just travel through a haunted house for Pete; a skeleton army might not be so bad.

One look at Pete as they enter the dimming daylight outside, one shared smile and an untimed burst of laughter, and he knows Pete’s thinking the same thing.

They’d do absolutely anything for each other and that’s exactly the way things should be. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um, cheesy? Cliche? Fluffy enough to be labeled fluff? Haha, let me know what you think and I might be back with another one!
> 
> (emphasis on the might... there's a lot going on but I could try to make time for more stuff if people want it!)

**Author's Note:**

> Btw I'm still gonna be updating my other works throughout the month because, really, would I ever make anything easy for myself? Haha, have a nice October!!


End file.
